FINE IS RESULT OF COLLISION ON HILL

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19237, 26 November 1930, Page 14

FINE IS RESULT OF COLLISION ON HILL

DANGEROUS DRIVING CHARGE IS HEARD. John Tenline Bennett (W. R. Lascelles) was to-day fined £5, and was ordered to pay 19s costs and £1 10s witnesses’ expenses for driving in a manner dangerous to the public on the Lj'ttelton-Sumner road. Two other charges of driving at a speed dangerous to the public and with driving in a reckless manner were withdrawn by the police after the hearing of evidence. The case was heard by Mr H. A. Young, S.M., in the Lyttelton Magistrate’s Court. The charges arose out of the collision on the Lyttelton-Sum-ner road on October 22, in which Mr and Mrs Fowler, o£ 0 Redcliffs, were badly cut about the head and face through the smashing of a wind screen by colliding with the defendant’s car. Mrs Mabel Louisa Elizabeth Fowler gave evidence that she was driving a car from Sumner to Lyttelton. Her husband accompanied her. On the journey she noticed a car coming in an opposite direction. When about to pass the car another car came out from behind the first car, and endeavoured to pass the first car. The car collided with her car, and both herself and her husband were cut about the face by the broken wind screen. She had no time to apply the brakes. The second car seemed to go right across to the wrong side of the road. To Mr Lascelles, Mrs Fowler said that she could not give any evidence as to the speed that defendant’s car was travelling. She regarded the accident as an unfortunate condition of circumstances. A live fence had something to do with obscuring visibilit3 r . Christopher Fenwick, a student, stated that when opposite Loader’s farm he heard the car behind him sound its horn, and he took it that he wanted to pass. Witness pulled in towards the left. The car then tried to pass him at between twenty and twenty-five miles an hour. Just as the car was abreast of him it collided with an Austin car coming in the opposite direction. There was no room for three cars to pass, Bennett, in giving evidence, stated that he got up to Fenwick’s car on the road. The car was travelling rather slowly, and he decided to pass it at a stretch of the road before reaching Loader's farm, where the road is thirtyseven feet wide. Just as he was about to pass, Fenwick’s car went over towards the right, at the same time as the Austin came in sight, and he had no option'but to cross the road. It was then that the collision occurred. Had Fenwick's car not crossed over towards the centre of the road he could have got ahead before entering the narrow stretch of the road. Witness had driven a car for twenty years, and had never previously been before the Court. The Magistrate then imposed the penalty. .