FATAL MOTOR ACCIDENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 September 1926, Page 2

FATAL MOTOR ACCIDENT.

INQUEST ON RUTH LOADER. NO ONE TO BLAME. The death of Ruth Gwendoline Loader, aged eight years, following a motor accident in St. Aubyn Street on Friday last, was the subject of an adjourned inquest yesterday before the coroner, Air. R. W. Tate, B.M. The girl was tlie youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. Loader, of Glen Road. The verdict was that 1 lie cause of death was a fracture at the base of I lie skull, received through being knocked down by a motor-ear driven by Montague Bert Mace, of Oniata. It was added that no blame was attachable to l lie driver of Hie ear or to anv other | ersen. ’1 he evidence showed that at about 3 p.m. on Friday last tlie deceased and two other small girls were on the footpath on tlie south side of St. Aubyn Street, in front of Jeffery’s bakery. Ruth Loader left the others and commenced to run across tlie road to one of the shops opposite. One of her companions, Margaret Beryl Putt, then called out that a motor-ear was coming, and she immediately stopped and looked westwards, away from the oncoming motor-car. Mace was driving from town at a slow speed, but before he could pull up or turn he had knocked the girl down, her head striking the roadway. She was taken immediately, to the public hospital, where she died at 12.30 a.m. on Saturday without regaining consciousness. Mace was on his way home when the accident occurred. He had slowed, down to pass a tram on approaching the Cutfield Road intersection, and just as he did so Ruth Loader stepped from the footpath and ran in front of his car. He applied his brakes, but was unable to avoid a collision. He had seen th 4 girls together when some distance away, but had not thought one of them would cross the road. He was well on his left side and was moving at about seven miles an hour. Immediately he saw the girl was injured he sent for a doctor, wlio ordered her removal to the hospital.