FATAL MOTOR ACCIDENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3403, 4 June 1919, Page 25

FATAL MOTOR ACCIDENT.

PEMBROKE LADY AND DAUGHTER KILLED. OAMARU, May 29. A fatal motor smash occurred on the Main road about two miles north of Oamaru just after dusk this 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 via Lindis Pass. In the darkness the car apparently missed a narrow bridge of a shallow creek and dropped into a shallow depression, the car capsizing. Details of the accident are meagre. 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. Mr Hugh Glass, who conducted the Commercial Hotel at Lawrence before removing to Pembroke, is a brother of Messrs Frank and Amos Glass, painters, Tees street, Oamaru. May. 30. The headlights of Mr Glass's 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 quickly 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. May 31.

An inquest in connection with the motor fatality on the main road north of Oamaru on Thursday night was opened to-day, but nothing- that threw much new light upon the accident was elicited. In Ids evidence Mr Hugh G. S. Glass, owner and driver of the cut. stated that as the ear lamps would not work he. obtained the use of a hurricane lamp, which was held by Mrs Glasse outside tho door of the car. The car ran all right.- but in the dark he was much troubled'with the glare of approaching cars, the drivers evidently not dimming their lights. He was driving very slowlv right down the North road, and hugging hisright side of the road all the way. 1' knew the road well, but borrowed the lamp as a precaution. All he remembered about the accident was that the car struck something and went rl<rht over. He was pinned under the car. with his head and ohest out. He considered the bridge a very bad one, and dangerous —In fact, worse than any tbev had- in the back blocks. Mr G. L. Outhbertson, the county engineer, gave evidence that from tho tracks he saw next morning he concluded that tho driver had made a turn towards the centre of tb" road and that the car had struck a bank of stones and turned right over. If the driver had gone straight on, he would probably have run clear and got, through. The bridge was 27ft wide—one of the widest in the county—!and the whole road was 38ft wide. The Inquiry was adjourned until Monday morning. June 2. The coroner's inquiry Into the fatal motor accident on Thursday night was conoluded

to-day. The jury returned a verdict that Mrs Glass and her daughter met their deaths by asphyxiation through being pinned under the oar in the mud ana water, adding a rider drawing the attention of the authorities to tho failure of motorists to dim their lights on meeting other vehicles, and expressing the opinion that the bridge where the aooident occurred should be widened, as the approaches were dangerous.