Dangerous Driving Charge Dismissed

Northern Advocate, 17 June 1949, Page 4

Dangerous Driving Charge Dismissed

Had Dizzy Spell ?

KAIKOHE, Fri. (Sp.).—Several hours,of yesterday’s monthly magistrate’s court' sitting at Kaikohe were occupied with the hearing of a defended police charge of dangerous driving brought as a sequel to a car accident on the Paihia-Puketona main highway on January 6. Defendant was Hugh Errol McLean, who had formerly been a driver of NZR passenger buses between Kaitaia and Otiria, a taxi driver, a second-hand dealer in Kawakawa and who now was a tram conductor in Auckland.

Dismissing the charge, Mr W. C. Harley, S.M., made his final comment as follows:

“My answer is that the probability is that speed caused the accident, but the possibility is that McLean had a dizzy spell and, as the possibility is a reasonable one—and not too unreasonable —the case will be dismissed.”

Sergeant H. Sargeant, of Kaikohe, prosecuted. Police witnesses included Constable J.T. Chalcraft, formerly of Kawakawa; Constable D. C. Muir, of Kawakawa; Constable F. J. Ryan, of Ohaeawai; Traffic-Inspector R. Peters, of Kaikohe; Mr and Mrs W. M. McHugh, motorists on the road at that time; and James Dorset, proprietor of the taxi driven by defendant. MOTORISTS OVERTAKEN The McHughs described how their own vehicle had been passed, as they had been approaching a corner, by another and more powerful car, which they positively identified as the one involved in the accident. They also identified the driver himself. His action, they declared, was a foolish one and his speed was too high for sdfety A mile further on they had seen the damaged car on the side of the road and had stopped to give assistance. McLean had remained unconscious from the time they had found him in the upturned car to when they had left.

loose metal in the watertable. He would have only about three seconds to control the car. DEFENDANT IN BOX “I am not happy about this blackout business,” added Mr Harley. “The only evidence we so far have is that the accused said to someone else that he had had blackouts—and that is not evidence when the accused is sitting i: the court.

“I am not going to dismiss the case at this stage and I think it is the duty of the defence to take it a little farther.” Mr Gerard thereupon put McLean into the witness-box. Defendant described his various jobs. Of the accident, the first thing he remembered -was waiting up in hospital in Kawakawa.

Constable Ryan had taken measurements at the scene soon after the mishap. Constables Chalcraft and Muir had taken statements from defendant at different times in Kawakawa. To Mr J. D. Gerard, they admitted they had not warned McLean, as they had no knowledge that a prosecution would follow.

James Dorset, of Paihia, said he had confidence in McLean’s driving. He had just arrived back from a 142mile round-trip with tourists through Waipoua Forest when a taxi job at Oromahoe came up. \ He had offered to do it himself, but McLean had 6aid he would not mind. There had been no need to hurry, and McLean had been told this. He thought McLean might have had a blackout. INSPECTOR S VIEWPOINT Inspector Peters agreed with several other witnesses that, from the appearance of wheel-marks on the road, the taxi seemed to have travelled a long distance in the left-hand watertable at high speed before plunging off the road into gorse and scrub, where it tinned over three times, coming to rest on the hood. The driver apparently had made no endeavour to pull the car back on to the road. "Either he drove off the road on purpose or there was something wrong with him,” the inspector said. “If he had been normal and was driving too fast, I consider that, with the natural curve of the road, he would actually have driven • off the road on the opposite side to that on which he crashed.” r - Mr Gerard said McLean’s actions had apparently been so foolish that, unless he had wished to commit suicide, they would have been made by no conscious man. He submitted that he had been subject' to a blackout without warning. POLICE DELAY

He complained also that the police had caused an unreasonable delay of six months in notification of the time, place and nature of the offence to defendant, who heard them >n court for the first time.

McLean was entitled to be acquitted under provisions of Section 7 of the Motor Vehicles Amendment Act, 1936, on this circumstance.

The magistrate said the focal point of the police case was that McLean must have driven the car in a dangerous manner so as to have, rolled it over. The only flaw was that the traffic inspector, who had to be deferred to as an expert witness, said that, if it had been speed, the car would have gone off the road to the right and not to the left, as it did.

The defence had made mention of blackouts, which might account for the sudden unreasonable speed in that the victim’s foot would press down sharply on the accelerator. “I think the probability is that the defendent was driving too fast and that he tried to straighten up after coming off the concrete surface of a bridge a little way back, but got into

He said he had liad concussion from a motor cycle accident while in the Army and had thereafter been subject to peculiar dizzy spells, which had not appeared to him to be serious and which passed off when he stiffened his body. He was giving up all passengercarrying licences. The magistrate then referred to the, reasonableness of a doubt, as' at first reported, and dismissed the charge.