A FATAL MISTAKE

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 248, 23 July 1925, Page 6

A FATAL MISTAKE

WRONG TURNING TAKEN

CAR FALLS INTO RIVER It will me recalled that a motor-car which -was being driven Hom Upper Hutt to .Mastertoil on the evening of July 13 was by mistake turned oil on to the old road when about two miles on the Wairaiapa side of Kaitoke. The outcome was tragic, since the track taken terminated at the river bank. The car overturned into (i feet of water, and while two of the three ocupants escaped, the drive-, Herbert Edwards, a tanner of borough, was pinned underneath llic vehicle and drowned. The circumstances attending the accident were inquired into by the Coroner (Mr. W. G. Riddell, S.M.) yesterday. Senior-Sergeant McKelvio appeared for the police. Hugh Mincliin, a contractor living at Martinborough, said that at cbout 4.4) ji.in. ou July 13 he left Upper Hutt in deceased's car for Martinborough. Witness was seated in the back of the car and deceased and a Mr. Kaye were iu tho front. The night was dark, but the lights on the car wore good. Edwards was driving very caiclully. The first intimation witness had that anything was amiss was when the ear overturned, somersaulted over a bank, and lell read downwards into a stream. The vehicle was submerged in the water, and witness extricated himself by bursting open the side screens. Mr. Kaye was able to get out, too, but deceased remained pinned underneath the car. Deceased was perfectly sober. An advertising agent, of Masterton. Herbert Charles Kaye, who occupied the fiont seat of the cat with deceased, described the weather as being worse than bad. Deceased had apparently taken the wrong turning on the hill road, and all that witness knew was that the car had lallen into the water. Tho party was sober, and deceased was driving carefully. Constable Wallace" said that the accident occurred about two miles on the Wairarapa side of Kaitoke on the main Rimutaka Road. The car was lying upside down in tho Pakuratahi, a tributary of the Hutt River. The bank at that point was 8 foot high and the depth of water in the stream 6 feet. Reviewing tho evidence, the Coroner remarked that the night was dark, and rain was falling, so that tho driver would not be iu a position to see veryfar in front of him. His lights were good, and the evidence showed that he was travelling at a slow speed. For some reason which could i.ot be exnlaincd he had followed the old road. The Coroner found that deceased was drowned in tho I’akuratahi, through ac'/identally driving his car over the bank into the river, and being pinned in the water under the ear. “Whether there is liability on any local body or not is a question which will have to 'lx; decided in another place,” added the Coroner. “Certainly it would have been safer to have had something to mark the position of the old road, seeing that it ends with a sudden drop into-the river, but the lact that there has been no accident for two years shows that the getting oil the road was very small.”