FATAL MOTOR ACCIDENT.

Lake County Press, Issue 2788, 5 June 1919, Page 5

FATAL MOTOR ACCIDENT.

Pembroke Lady and Daughter Killed. A fatal motor smash occurred on the Main road about two miles north of Oamaru just after dusk on Thursday evening. Mr Hugh Glass, licensee of the Pembroke Hotel, at Lake Wanaka, accompanied by his wife and young ' daughter, were coming into town by motor car. They bad travelled via the Lindis Pass. In the darkness the car apparently missed a narrow bridge over a shallow creek and dropped into a depression, the car capsizing. Mrs Glass was killed, her neck being broken, and her four-year-old daughter was apparently suffocated by being held down under the car. Both were dead when the accident was discovered. Mr Glass, whose people reside in Oamaru, is in hospital seriously injured. A later message states : The headlights of the car proved defective. Mr Glass borrowed a hurricane lamp, which was held. With but a poor light, Mr Glass appears to have proceeded cautiously hugging his right side of the road to avoid danger. Directly opposite the racecourse gates the road has been widened considerably to accommodate a crush of traffic on race days, and then narrows down quiokly to a bridge over a watercourse olose by. Mr Glass had evidently followed the outside edge of the road at the widened part, and not knowing the sudden narrowing, had proceeded straight ahead, with the result that before he realised the danger immediately before him the car was over the bank. The car turned completely over into the watercourse, and when the accident was discovered it was lying close in alongside the bridge, with the victims underneath. The condition of Mr Glass shows improvement. The coroner's inquiry concluded on Monday. The jury returned a verdict that Mrs Glass and her daughter met their death by asphyxiation by being pinned under the car in mud and water and adding a rider drawing the attention of the authorities to the failure of motorists to " dim" lights on meeting other vehicles and expressing the opinion that the bridge where the accident occurred should be widened as the approaches were dangerous.