COLLISION WITH TRAM

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22661, 16 March 1939, Page 4

COLLISION WITH TRAM

+ MOTOR-CYCLIST’S DEATH ACCIDENT INVESTIGATED AT INQUEST A motor-cyclist’s collision with a Sumner tram in Ferry road was described at an inquest yesterday into the death of Roland Alfred Howe, a labourer, aged 22. Mr E. C. Levvey, S.M., Coroner, returned a verdict that Howe died from head Injuries sustained on December 22, 1938, when a motor-cycle he owned and was riding collided with a tram. The Coroner added that there was no evidence of any act or omission on the part of the ollicers in charge of the tram, which in any way contributed to the collision. Sergeant C. Mcßae conducted the inquest for the police. Mr J. D. Hutchison appeared for the Tramway Board. Emerson Brook, motorman on the tram involved in the accident, said that at 8.42 p.m. his tram had just passed the Heathcote bridge on its way to Christchurch, when he noticed the headlight of a motor-vehicle approaching. The vehicle, which he later found was a motor-cycle, appeared to be well clear of the tram, on its correct side of the road. After it passed the driver’s cabin on the tram he heard a crash, and immediately slopped the tram and went back. He found a man lying in the gutter, with a motor-cycle nearby. The man was unconscious. He examined the tram, and found that the motor-cycle had collided.with the down-pipe on the right-hand side. It was raining heavily, but the visibility from the tram was good. Constable J, P. Mather said lie examined the scene of ,the accident, and considered the camber of the road would make it difficult for motorcycling in wet weather, and would be conducive to skidding.

The heater and gyroscope cover of a torpedo fired from the Spanish Republican destroyer Jose Luis Dioz have been found on the afterdeck of the Nationalist minelayer Vulcano, with which she collided during the recent action off Gibraltar. The torpedo is believed to have passed over the Volcano's afterdeck.