“Obviously Unfit To Hold Taxi-Driver’s License.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18639, 17 December 1928, Page 9

“Obviously Unfit To Hold Taxi-Driver’s License.”

CORONER’S STERN COMMENT IN SUMMING-UP AT INQUEST ON MOTOR FATALITY. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, December 17. THE inquest on Joseph O’Neill, who was killed as a result of a taxi going over a bank in the Taita Gorge in the early hours of December 3, was concluded to-day. A constable gave evidence that wheel marks showed that the car went gradually close to the bank and then went over. Mr O’Regan, who appeared for deceased's wife, said that O’Neill was a highly respectable man and generally of sober habits, but on the Saturday before the accident he won £IOO in a double and wished to stand his friends a drink. A verdict was returned “ that the cause of death was a fractured skull, received when a taxi, in which deceased was riding, and which was driven by E. W. Sargent, was accidentally driven over the side of the road in the Taita Gorge.” The Coroner commented on the intoxicated state of two “passengers, deceased and Horsfall, and said that as regards the driver there was no evidence to show that he was intoxicated. There was evidence, however, that the driver had had some liquor. “ A taxi driver,” continued the Coroner, “ is responsible for the safe conduct of passengers, whatever their condition, and 1 think the conduct of the driver in taking liquor, in taking men of their condition into his car, and taking them for a drive, in stopping at an hotel for liquor, which was refused, and then in stopping at another hotel and obtaining and partaking of liquor, is deserving of the severest censure. He is obviously unfit, 1 think, to hold a taxi-driver’s license.”