AGE OF CAR DRIVERS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19026, 28 May 1936, Page 3

AGE OF CAR DRIVERS

LIMIT DESIRABLE CORONER’S sFOOEKTiON (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, last night. A suggestion that the time may have como for tho fixing of a maximum as well as a minimum age for drivers of motor vehicles was made by Mr. E. .Lcvvey, S.M., who presided as coroner at an inquest. to-day into the death ol Clifford Lindsay Thompson, aged one year. The child was killed when a car driven by his grandfather. William Arthur Thompson, aged 72, of 173 Norwood street. Beckenham, capsized over a railway embankment at, Rnkain on April 18. “Before making mv finding, " the coroner said, “it seems to me necessary to pass some comment. This is the third or fourth ease before me recently in which some person has sustained serious injury, damage has been done to a car, or death has been caused unfortunately with a driver at the wheel who has attained ihe ripe age of more than 70 years. “1 have spoken to the principal medical authorities in Christchurch and the result is that I have come to the conclusion that, when people attain a certain age, their nerve reflexes arc mu snlliricnl ly acute in a crisis or emergency. The ability to act. with speed is inevitably lacking. Legislation has stipulated ;l minimum age necessary for driving licenses and. although it may be hard «u some of us, the lime may he approaching when the authorities will find it necessary to appoint a limit at- I lie other end also.”