Youth fined $350 for jigger ride

Press, 16 May 1985, Page 14

Youth fined $350 for jigger ride

Greymouth reporter

A youth who was “thrown” by a runaway railway jigger was fined $350 and ordered to pay compensation of $B5O by Judge Pain in the District Court at Greymouth yesterday. The Court was told a fortnight ago that Lance David Pickering, aged 18, a labourer (Mr M. M. Bell), had unlawfully taken the jigger from Ahaura to ride home to Totara Flat, a distance of about six kilometres, when after a drinking bout he found no other means of transport. Nearing Totara Flat he was thrown from the jigger which travelled on its own for about 30km along the Grey-mouth-Reefton railway line before colliding with a goods train. Mr Bell said that Pickering had intended to dismount the machine at

Totara Flat, and lift it off the track. He thought that he had put the gears to neutral and released the clutch. It “threw him," and he was powerless to stop it.

He had no telephone through which to advise that the jigger was running on the line, and now faced a compensation payment of $1732 for damage caused in the collision. However, an “out-of-town character” had travelled on the machine with Pickering, who knew him only by a Christian name. Efforts to find this other person had been unsuccessful, Mr Bell said.

Because of the possibility that a second person may have been involved he would order in the case compensation of $B5O although this would not prevent the Railways Corporation seeking the remainder, the Judge said.