MOTOR CYCLIST KILLED

Waipa Post, Volume 43, Issue 3328, 28 July 1931, Page 4

MOTOR CYCLIST KILLED

COLLISION WITH FORD TRUCK. •,7\ AT GRIGG’S CORNER, OHAUPO ROAD, Information was received by the police at Te Awamutu yesterday afternoon that a fatality had occurred on the Ohaupo Road, at a part of the highway usually known as Grigg’s Corner, about 31 miles from Te Awamutu, a motor cyclist, believed to be Edward James Park, a sawmill hand at Waihou (near Te Aroha), being the victim.

Itappears the cyclist was proceeding from Te Awamutu toward Hamilton when he collided with a Ford halfton truck driven by Mr James Martin, line superintendent at Hamilton for the Post and Telegraph Department. Constables J. Forsyth and A. R. Rimmer, with Dr F. C. Blundell, proceeded to the spot, and the cyclist, who had been very badly injured about the head an shoulders, was found unconscious. First aid was rendered, and the ambulance from the Waikato Hospital telephoned for, but the unfortunate man succumbed before it arrived.

The body was brought to Te Awamutu, and the police obtained statements from Mr Martin and a passenger with him in the Ford truck, and also from two young men who were walking along the road, and who state that they witnessed the collision. An inquest will be held, probably tomorrow, for purposes of identification.

The police found in the clothes of the injured man a license for a motor cycle issued at Morrinsville, bearing the number 6370, and the machine was probably an old model of a Sun cycle, but it was so badly shattered in the collision that it was practically upidentifiable.

THE INQUEST.

EVIDENCE OF EXCESSIVE SPEED The inquest on Edward James Park was opened at the Court House this morning before Mr G. A. Empson, coroner. Constable J. Forsyth represented the police and Mr S: S. Preston watched the case on behalf of deceased’s widow. Adolphus J. Park, engineer, Morrinsville, gave evidence of identification of his son’s body. The son was a married man with two children, and lived at Waihou, where he had been working as a machinist at a sawmill. Deceased was a returned soldier, and was married at Penzance, in England. He had been to Mangapeehi, and was returning home when the fatality occurred.

Corraborative evidence was given by Francis A. Park, a brother of deceased, who resides at Mangapeehi. Deceased had visited him at Mangapeehi on Sunday and left next morning for Waihou, riding a single-cylin-der Sun motor-cycle, an old model of 31 horse-power. The machine was in fair order but not speedy.

John Albert Sanderson said he was walking towards Auckland with a mate, John P. Masterton, when a mo-tor-cyclist passed them, going towards Hamilton. Masterton remarked, “ I could nearly walk as fast as he is going.” Its speed could not have been more than ten or twelve miles per hour. The rider was on his correct side of the road. They watched the cyclist go round a slight bend in the road at a slow speed, and as they got to the bend they saw the cycle in the actual act of collision with a Ford truck, about 60 or 70 yards ahead of witness and his companion. They heard the crash and saw the cyclist thrown in the air some distance back toward witness. The motor-cycle struck the centre of the truck, and the cycle was thrown into the air. The truck continued on some distance dragging the cycle with it under the right-hand front wheel, and then it stopped. The truck driver got out and walked round to the front. He had backed his vehicle off the cycle. Witness and his companion ran to the scene. The driver called to witness to telephone for a doctor and the police. Witness did so from a nearby farmhouse and then returned to the scene. , Masterton was kneeling by the injured man; the body had been moved slightly. Witness made the injured man as comfortable as possible. Witness considered the truck was being driven too fast at the time of the collision, and he was positive the cyclist was keeping to his correct side of the road. The wheel marks showed that the truck brakes were applied 40 or 50 feet from the. point of impact. The injured man never regained consciousness or spoke. Witness had seen the truck earlier in the day. Just before the collision he could not see the truck as the road was lower round the bend. The collision was head-on, and was caused by the excessive speed of the truck at a bad corner. The truckdriver should have kept right to his correct side when negotiating the corner; had this been done the collision would almost certainly have been avoided. When the impact occurred the cycle “ climbed ” the front of the truck, and the cyclist was catapulted back nearly 20 feet. The truck driver’s companion said- something to the driver just after the impact, and the driver backed his vehicle a few yards. Witness could not hear what was said between the two. The truck’s left-hand head-light was damaged by the impact. Before witness and his companion actually reached the scene the truck driver had come toward them, obviously to telephone for aid, and when he saw : witness he called to him to do the telephoning. When returning he met the driver on the road, and the driver, after being assured that the police and a doctor had been telephoned for, remarked: “ It’s pretty rotten, isn’t it?” and witness replied: “Yes, it is. We witnessed it.” Witness went straight to the unconscious man to render any aid that he could. The marks of the motor cycle being dragged were along the centre of the road,. The cyclist was on his own side of the road right until the impact. The truck, at the time of the impact, ! was on its correct side, but coming at an angle toward the cyclist’s side of the road. When the truck was stopped its right front wheel and its fender were over the centre-line of

the road, and there were still about 7 feet or 8 feet of metal from the edge of the wheel to the cyclist’s side of the road, giving him ample room to pass if he had been on the extreme left. When the police examined the locality the truck had been shifted back about 15 feet and on to its correct. side. It would have been impossible for the impact to have thrown the cyclist on to the top of the truck. The cycle’s front wheel climbed on to the truck’s bumper, and the actual impact with the truck was the underpart of the cycle, which threw the rider back on to the road, coming to rest nearly 20 feet away. Witness reiterated that it was a head>-on collision. Part of the broken cycle broke the truck’s head-light. Re-examined, witness said it was quite possible that the cyclist lost control of his machine when he saw that a collision was imminent. The cycle could have been bumped after the first impact, accounting for its position. The rider was catapulted clear, and was not crushed between the cycle and the truck. To Mr Preston: When the cyclist passed witness he nodded a greeting, and witness’ companion remarked on the speed. Witness said: “Oh, it’s only a one-lunger,” indicating the low power of the cycle. His distance away from the collision might have been a few yards further than 70 yards. There was 'a bend in the road, yet the collision was in clear view. It might have been 100 yards distant. He and his companion did not run fast —“ we were too tired to run fast or far ”■—but they hurried. The truck had been stopped, backed off the cycle, and the driver had dismounted and walked forward some distance when he called to witness to telephone. The cyclist, just before the impact, was on his correct side, but bearing up toward the centre. The truck driver was doing likewise. This would convey the impression probably to both men that a collision was inevitable. There was some loose metal on the cyclist’s side of the road—the higher side of the road—and a strip about 4 feet wide, from the edge of ■the metal toward the centre. A rider of a light machine would hesitate to ride over such loose metal at a bend, especially if a fast-moving vehicle were approaching, and would probably try to keep to the firm surface if given the opportunity. Deceased’s right leg was snapped above the ankle. To the coroner: Had driven for nine years. It took 48 feet in which to stop the truck; either the pace was excessive or the brake linings were very faulty. The coroner Commented that the statement about the cyclist being catapulted away from the point of impact was absurd. Witness had given a wealth of detail, yet he later admitted that he was wrong in his statement that he was 60 to 70 yards away. The condition of the wrecked cycle contradicted some other statements by witness. Continuing, Sanderson said he estimated the average travelling speed of the cycle at about 20 miles per hour, as it was not high-powered and not in good order. He had had experience of motor cycles, and would be surprised to learn that that machine had covered 60 miles in three hours that morning. He had been struck by- the noise and the slow pace of the machine as it passed witness and his companion. The pace might possibly have been 15 miles per hour. ® The coroner remarked that witness admitted not having seen the on-com-ing truck before the impact, yet he declared the speed excessive. Witness, to a direct question, said he estimated the pace of the truck at 40 miles per hour, basing the estimate on the distance deceased was thrown and the marks on the road where the brakes were applied. At this stage the luncheon adjournment was taken, and the coroner will inspect the scene of the accident.

(Left sitting.)