CHARGE OF FATAL NEGLIGENCE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25177, 7 May 1947, Page 3

CHARGE OF FATAL NEGLIGENCE

CARS COLLIDED AT INTERSECTION ‘ SUPREME COURT TRIAL The case was important as decisions by a jury assisted the public in deciding what the standard of driving should be, said Mr A. W. Brown, when prosecuting for the Crown on a charge of negligent i driving causing death, preferred against Harvey Francis Page (Dr. A. L. Haslam), in the Supreme Court yesterday. A jury generally had to decide what happened in such cases and who’was responsible, but the case under hearing was straightforward and all the jury had to do was to decide whether accused was negligent, or not. Negligence in the eyes of the law was a failure to exercise reasonable care and the care which ought to be used in particular circumstances. It was alleged by the Crown, said Mr Brown, that the accused had failed to exercise reasonable care as he had admitted that he had failed to keep a proper look-out. He had approached a corner at what was considered excessive speed and had failed to obey a statutory rule of the roadto give, way to traffic approaching from the right. Muriel Catherine Pawsey, a married woman, said that on December 9 last she was driving along Graham’s road with her father,. George Patterson, as a passenger. Approaching the intersection with Burnside road she slowed down to a speed of about 15 miles an hour and changed gears. On reaching the intersection she glanced to her left and saw a motor-car approaching about 60 yards away. She then looked to her right and proceeded to cross the intersection. On reaching the crown of the road she atfain glanced to her left and saw that the car was only a few yards from her and that the driver appeared to be looking out to his left. She estimated the speed to be between 50 and 60 miles an hour. The other car then struck hers, and spun it round iri a complete circle. Her car eventually came to rest against a telegraph pole while the other travelled a further 40 feet along the road and finished on an embankment through a gorse hedge. She was thrown from her car after it had struck the pole, said the witness, and her father, who was thrown out when the. collision occurred, was dragged along the road underneath the other car. After the accident the accused had given assistance, she said.

Questioned by Dr. Haslam, the witness said that the car she was driving was a 1938 model and was dark green in colour. She glanced to her right and then to her left when actually on the intersection, but had changed her gears before then. Since the accident, and since a previous hearing she had measured the distance she considered the accused’s car had been from the intersection when she first saw it and found out it was about 60 yards. When she saw accused’s car just before the Impact, an accident appeared imminent, and she did not use her brakes. Walter William Laing, a shingle merchant, said he saw Mrs Pawsey’s car travelling along Graham’s road at a speed which he considered was about 20 miles an hour. He heard a crash shortly after and went immediately to the scene where he found the two cars in the positions as described by Mrs Pawsey. He saw accused assisting the injured man. It was a fine day and visibility was good. There were live fences along each road, said the witness to Dr. Haslam, and they had all been cut the previous May. Evidence corroborating the position of the car was given by Alfred George Barwell and Allan Vernon Brown, the latter a police constable. He made measurements, both on foot and in a car, and tests as to whether it was posible to see far along Graham’s road from Burnside road, said. Brown. He considered that visibility was good all angles. Questioned by Dr. Haslam, Brown said he was 6 feet 3J inches tall. Medical evidence regarding Patterson’s admission to the Christchurch Public Hospital, and his death a day later, was given by Cyril Ashley Heaphy and Keith Wallace Cochrane, medical practitioners, each of whom was on the staff of the hospital at the time. At the conclusion of Constable Brown’s evidence the hearing' was adjourned until to-day..