KILLED BY A MOTOR-CAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13355, 8 December 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

KILLED BY A MOTOR-CAR.

STONES THROWN AT ARMY OFFICER

BY HOSTILE CROWD. While Lieutenant Raton, Northumberland Fusiliers, was on his way to Aldershot by motor-car he ran into a cyclist named Osborne Hart at Chobham, and caused his death.

At,the inquest Inspector Jannaway staled that ho had measured the distances, and found that Hart was picked up 203ffc from the scene of the accident, 'while the car travelled 572 ft before it could be stopped, although tho driver said he had both brakes on.

Several witnesses said the accident was caused by the terrific speed at which the car was driven. William Mears put the speed-at between forty and fifty miles an hour. Henry Yarlett stated thaL just before the accident the car passed "Bim like "a flash of lightning." William Goodyear said that the speed was nearer fifty than forty miles, and the car was travelling faster than an express train? Another witness said the car passed .him a mile from the accident, and it covered the mile under a minute and a-half.

Lieutenant Raton, the owner and driver of the car, said that he estimated the speed at twenty miles an hour, but the car might have been going at thirty miles. It was possible to tell when a car was going at ten miles, but impossible to tell when it was twenty or thirty miles an hour. He admitted that his was a 40horse power car, and could easily do forty miles an hour. --■ .

Some feeling was shown by the members of the jury, one remarking that the British public were being ridden down wholesale by motorists. In the end the coroner, at the request of Hart's father, adjourned the inquiry. As Lieutenant Raton drove away from the court in a motor, accompanied by his solicitor, a small "hostile .crowd hooted and a few stones were thrown, without any injury being done,. ■"[''/