DANGER IN DARK

Evening Post, Issue 12, 14 July 1936, Page 6

DANGER IN DARK

OVERHANGING LOADS

SUGGESTION AT INQUEST

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

BLENHEIM, July 13,

An, opinion that lorries carrying overhanging loads should display marker lights was expressed by the , Coroner at an. inquest this afternoon on Leonard Leslie Hart, 26 years, of age, married^ and George Gordon Davidson< 33 years of age, married, two Hillersden farmers, whose deaths followed a collision between a motor-car driven by Davidson and.a lorry driven by Mervyrt Albert Prentice near Wairau Valley, on the evening of June 15.

Evidence disclosed that the vehicles met ■on a straight, wide road after nightfall. The lorry-driver, aware that his load, consisting of heavy logs, overhung the deck, pulled: as far as possible to his correct side. Davidson, who was following a course along the centre of the road, evidently dazzled by the lorry's headlights, did tiot see the projection, with the result that he. crashed into the lorry's deck and logs alongside the driver's cab. The side of the car was ripped out by a terrific impact. Davidson was terribly injured and died in hospital a fortnight later?1 but Hart, who was seated immediately' behind him, was killed instantaneously The Coroner, exonerating the lorfydriver, said it was quite evident that Davidson had misjudged his position as a result of the dazzling lights in <i drizzling rain.-. \. . '.'