PUNIU ROAD COLLISION

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3468, 19 May 1934, Page 7

PUNIU ROAD COLLISION

REFUSAL OF NEW TRIAL.

CENTRE OF BITUMEN IS CENTRE

LINE OF ROAD

The opinion that, for the purpose cf the ease under consideration, the centre-line of the bitumen formation was to be regarded as the centre-line of the road, was given by Mr Justice Herdman in a reserved judgment received in the Hamilton Supreme Court on Thursday. The ease was one in which Augustus Alexander Frederick Candy and Benjamin Gilbert. Candy, farmers, Pokuru, and Harriet Tattersall Candy t wife of Benjamin Gilbert Candy, sought to recover damages from John Alexander Maxwell and Albert Edward W'ilson, carriers, Te Awamutu, arising out cf a collision between a car in which the plaintiffs were travelling and a lorry driven by an employee of defendants. A verdict was given by the jury for £268 12s in favour of Mts. Candy for damages for personal injuries, and for £Bl 4s Gd in favour of Candy Brothers for damages with respect to the car. Defendants applied for a new trial alleging misdirection and that the verdict . was against the weight of evidence. That the car was proceeding along its correct side of the road when the accident occurred could not be doubted, said His Honor. The charge against the lorry driver was that as he rounded the coiner he swung too far across the road and struck the car. It was contended at the trial that he was driving on the wrong side cf the road.

At the point of impact the road wa s 54ft. in width, and the bitumen was 28ft. in width, continued His Honor. Metal, sand, gravel and grass were at the side of the bitumen, and if the grass area were deducted, 39ft. of bitumen and metal were left. The part of the road which was net made of bitumen might be reasonably usable, and if it comprised part of the road, defendants’ driver might have been in his coirect place for traffic purposes. His Honor said the consequences ot deciding in a case where a broad highway of bitumen was provided for motor ‘traffic, that other irregular pieces of road formation were to be taken into account for the purpose of determining the centre-line might be so serious that he felt obliged to interpret the rule as meaning in such a case as the jury was considering the centre of the bitumen. That was the portion of the road used for vehicular traffic. There was nothing in the facts proved to justify any suggestion that the verdict was against the weight of evidence, said His Honor. The application for a new trial was therefore dismissed.