MAN DROVE VAN DANGEROUSLY

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29108, 21 January 1960, Page 15

MAN DROVE VAN DANGEROUSLY

£lO Fine And Loss Of Licence

A Waimarie resident was fined £lO and his licence suspended for a year by Mr J. F Keane, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court at Westport yesterday morning when he was charged with dangerous driving. The defendant. Alfred J. Owen, a fireman, of Waimarie, was involved in an accident on the Mokihinui-Ngakawau road on December 3 in which three men were injured. Mr H. A. E. Maitland, for the defendant, asked that the charge be amended to one of driving without due care and attention It would be better to enter a plea of not guilty if it was desired to have the charge adjusted, said the Magistrate. Senior-Sergeant A. Hunt strongly opposed any reduction of the charge and alleged that it was a direct instance of dangerous driving on the part of the defendant. Owen had driven his van on the wrong side of the road around a corner and collided with a light car. The Magistrate said that after viewing photographs taken immediately after the accident by the police it appeared that Owen was travelling as far as practical on the right instead of the left side of the road, with all four wheels over the white line. “The element of speed is not the only factor in dangerous driving and it is most important that drivers should keep to the left and not cut corners,” he said.