BICYCLE COLLISION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24297, 14 May 1940, Page 11

BICYCLE COLLISION

DEATH FROM INJURIES i INQUEST ON VICTIM The inquest into the death of William Clark, who died on April 19 from injuries received in a bicycle collision, was concluded yesterday morning before Mr J..R. Bartholomew, S.M., sitting as coroner. Sergeant T. Johnson represented the police. Evidence was given by Constable A. Mackie, who said he had inspected the deceased's cycle, which had ho lamp. 1 Elizabeth May Clark, wife of the deceased, said he had taken his daughter's bicycle to go to a meeting which finished about 9 p.m. The deceased was subject to epileptic fits, John Nelson Bateman, a farm labourer, said that about 9 p.m. on April 10 he was cycling along Cumberland street. He had a dynamo light on his machine, but it was drizzling/ and visibility was; very poor. When he was about halfway between St. David street and Lambeth rcr.d,witness collided with another bicycle which was not lighted. Witness did not see the other man until he was only a few feet away. Evidence was also given by Catherine Stewart and Arthur Seddon. The coroner said the evidence made it clear that the deceased was the author of his own injuries. He had been riding an unlighted bicycle on a dark night, and had crossed to the opposite side of the street in the middle of a block. The other cyclist's machine had been fully lighted, but he had had no opportunity of avoiding the accident. The verdict would be that death was due to cerebral injuries received by the deceased in a fall from a bicycle as the result of a collision with another cycle in Cumberland street, on April 10.