DEATH OF CYCLIST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20491, 17 February 1930, Page 12

DEATH OF CYCLIST.

RUN DOWN BY CAR.

DRIVER'S IDENTITY UNKNOWN,

EFFORTS BY POLICE FAIL.

[BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

WELLINGTON, Sunday. When tho inquest was resumed into tho death of . Charles 8011, aged 19, who was killed when cycling, the police had no' further information regarding the motor-car which ran him down on the Hutt Road near the Hutt Valley Power Board's promises on the night of November 28. One witness, Owen Herbert Cross, a telegraphist, who heard the crash, was called. Ho sqid he did not notice tho number of tho car which ran into Bell. The coroner, Mr. E. Page, S.M., returned a verdict that the deceased was killed while cycling along the Hutt Road by being run down by an overtaking motor-car driven by some 1 person unknown.

Cross said the car was low set and appeared to be a three-seater roadster. He could not soe who was in the car. Mr. W. E. Leicester said there was no evidence the relatives could call. They appreciated the endeavours that had been made by the police, but they hoped that alter the inquest the matter would not be dropped. In reviewing tho evidence the coroner said that the night was one of poor visibility. Rain commenced to fall which had the effect of darkening the bitumen and at the time of the accident the street lamps happened to have failed. The cycle had no tail light or reflector, but deceased's passenger had an electric torch. The /motor-car was on its correct side of tho road and its speed did not appear to have been excessive. Under all the circumstances the presence of a cyclist would have been difficult to observe and the fatality might have happened without any negligence on the part of the driver cf the motor-car.

The unsatisfactory phase of the case, however, continued the coroner, was that {he driver of the car, a woman, after running down' the cyclist, drove on and escaped without disclosing her identity. Mr. Grey, engineer to the Power Board, gave a car number to the police, but this proved to belong to a lorry which had not been out on the evening of the fatality, and it' was clear that a mistake had been made in the number. The utmost efforts of the police had failed to trace the motor-car which ran into Bell.