COMPULSORY STOP URGED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19584, 16 March 1938, Page 11

COMPULSORY STOP URGED

TRAFFIC BEHIND BUSES

OPINIONS OF CORONER-

DEATH OF YOUNG WOMAN (Per Pross Association,) AUCKLAND, last night. “It may be inconvenient, but I think I will have to recommend the authorities to make it compulsory for traffic to stop behind standing buses," said Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., who presided as coroner at an inquest into the death of Mary Robinson Stretch, a cook, single, aged 26 years, who died in the Auckland Hospital on February 2 after being knocked down by a horse float on Great South Road, on January 31. John Cameron, driver of the horse float, said he was going south the same way as a bus at 6.30 p.m., and he noticed the bus stop. Witness slowed His vehicle, sounded his horn, and moved out to pass well clear of the bus. The young woman ran round from the front of the bus with her head down, and hit the side of the float, although the driver swerved to his right. Rhodes Battye, the driver of the bus, said he did not see the woman pass in front of it after alighting, as the front was almost vertical. He noticed her run straight across the road until she readied the centre, and then turn to the south, apparently seeing the float, but she hit its door. When the coroner made his suggestion about making it compulsory for veliieles to stop behind standing buses; the witness said it would bo most inconvenient, as his bus made 87 stops between Auckland and its terminus.

“Something must be done,” said the coroner. "I suggest that big notices be put up in buses saying that passengers are forbidden to pass in front of them.” He added that several cases of people being knocked down after getting out of buses had come to his notice.

The witness said verbal warnings had been given to passengers, but they were ignored. On the day alter the accident, two women in a bus had been talking about it, but when they alighted, one did exactly what the deceased had done. Fortunately there was no traffic passing. A verdict was given that the deceased died from injuries received when she was accidentally knocked down by the float. The coroner said he was pleased to be able to add that there was no blame attachable to the driver of the float.