MOTORING TRAGEDY

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 January 1926, Page 8

MOTORING TRAGEDY

' INQUEST AND VERDICT (Per Press Association.) PALMERSTON N., Jan. 29. The adjourned enquiry into the circumstances surrounding the fatality at Rangiotu road bridge, on the night of August 16, last, whereby, Mrs. C. H. Withers’and her two sons lost their lives through the car in which they were travelling crashing through a picket fence and plunging down, the steep bank into the Oroua river, was resumed at the Court House thi? morning. The bodies of the two boys, Leonard Peri (5) and Jack Herbert (12) were found later, but the body of Mrs. Withers has not been recovered. Charles Herbert Withers gave evidence that on the night of the fatality, he was returning to Palmerston by cai'

accompanied by his wife and children and approached Ran.gictu bridge, travelling at about fifteen miles an hour. The headlights picked up the railway bridge about half a chain from the road bridge. Continuing on in the belief that the first named structure was the‘road bridge, he suddenly perceived the picket fence in front of the car. He immediately applied the brakes, but was too near the fence to stop the vehicle, it plunged over into the river. His wife and boys were in the back seat. He made en-

deavours to locate them without success. The next thing he remembered was freeing himself and being pulled out of the river. The Coroner returned a verdict that the two boys were accidentally drowned, the accident being apparently due to an error of judgment on the part of Withers, in mistaking the approach of the railway bridge for that of the traffic bridge. Further that at the time there was an element of danger at the locality. It was satisfactory to note from the evidence that steps had been taken to prevent a recuirence of such accidents.