USE OF HIGHWAY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19445, 3 November 1925, Page 10

USE OF HIGHWAY

ALLEGED OBSTRUCTION, l AN INFORMATION DISMISSED. j At the Magistrate’s Court yestcr- • orn ng, John R. Howe was •g.?d with obstructing a highway by •, .ug a piece of iron bar protruding -r his motor lorry. Senior-Sergeant . •n.leil said that the defendant had a tr on his lorry, which was projecting few feet at the rear of the vehicle. ; he was backing into his premises in Harrison Street a motor cyclist r< unded tiff' corner from Mathieson :r< et and collided with the bar. Mr Hussey, for the defendant. contended that his client was makng a reasonable use of the highway. Other vehicles went along with timber, . .. protruding at the back. K. 11. Ogdon, mechanic, said that on ~ night of September 28. he came out f Mathieson Street into Harrison .-ireet. He noticed a motor Krry a

short distance ahead, but did not I notice anything sticking out behind it. The first'thing he knew was that something struck his lamp. He took the obstruction to be a galvanised pipe. Kelvin Thomas said he was riding along Harrison Street ou the night in question but did not notice the pipe projecting from the rear of the lorry, till his attention was drawn towards it by the previous witness. The defendant stated that the pipe was only projecting Ift. Gin. at the back of his lorry. In summing up the Magistrate said that to have a pipe projecting out five or six feet and not take steps to light, it would be unreasonable use of the highway. There was a conflict of evidence, and the onus of proof was on the police. The information would be dismissed.