VAN AND JIGGER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22136, 26 September 1946, Page 4

VAN AND JIGGER

CROSSING COLLISION

MOTORIST FINED £2 “The defendant had ample opportunity to see the jigger, but apparently he assumed that as there was no train there was nothing on the line.” said Mr. E. L. Walton S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday when convicting and fining Alan Robert McPherson (.Mr. J. S. Wauchop) £2 and costs 19s on a charge of attempting to drive a motor van across a level crossing in Chalmers road on July 3 when a railway carriage was approaching and within half a mile of the crossing. McPherson had pleaded not guilty. Senior-Sergeant G. S. Norris prosecuted. He said McPherson’s van had collided with a railway jigger and trailer carrying six men, one of whom had been injured. _ For the prosecution, Jeffrey Bernard Treadcr, the driver of the jigger, and two other Railway Department employees, George Hinton Costain and Arthur Albert King, gave evidence to the effect that they noticed the approach of tne van when 50yds from the road crossing. Rain had fallen shortly before and the brakes of the jigger did not act well because of the slippery surface of the rails. There was no warning device on the jigger, but all had shouted a warning in an attempt to attract the van driver’s attention. Constable C. E. Squire also gave evidence. Mr. Wauchop submitted that his client had exercised every care in approaching the crossing and had been expecting traffic from Gisborne and not approaching Gisborne. His view, had been obstructed by a hedge and he had not seen the jigger until too late. In evidence, McPherson said his vision to the left was obscured by the hedge until lie was 20yds from the crossing. He had been looking to the right for any sign of a train and did not notice the presence of the jigger until too late, although he had swerved in an attempt to avoid the collision. He had not heal’d any warning shouted by the men on the jigger.