ISLAND BAY TRAGEDY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 110, 12 May 1933, Page 6

ISLAND BAY TRAGEDY

THE CORONER’S VERDICT CAR DRIVER’S INEXPERIENCE. [Per Press Association. ] WELLINGTON, May 11. The opinion that the death of the four victims of the tragic accident which occurred at midnight on April 1 when a car plunged over a 40-foot bank was due to the driver’s lack of skill and experience of handling the car was expressed by the coroner (Mr. E. Gilbertson) when delivering his verdict on the inquest to-day. The victims were: Olga Beryl Bardebes, Ernest Joseph Dickson, James Henry Wood, and his wife, Margaret Gilmor Wood. Reviewing the evidence, the coroner said that there was a sharp conflict as to the understanding that had been come to as to the driver of the car. The coroner, after a review of the evidence, said that he had no doubt but that Hooker decided not ai wait for the return of Fitzgerald or Hoare, and intentionally drove the car away. The car moved downhill and successfully negotiated the right-angle turn to the right, which occurs 100 yards after the starting point. Then, gathering momentum, he failed to negotiate the hairpin bend to the left, 37 yards beyond the first turn. When it was realised that the car was travelling dangerously. Dickson leaped, over from the back seat to try and help with the brake, and one of the ladies called to Hooker to be careful, and he replied.

“I can’t hold it.” The car went straight on at the hairpin bend and plunged over the 40-foot bank to the road below, turning a complete somersault and landing on the hood upside down, and back to front. The road at the point where the. car plunged over showed two skid marks of 12ft., showing that the wheels had been locked for that distance on the descent by the operation of one or other of the brakes.

“Hooker is a young man. 22 years old, and his experience in driving is very limited. Ho should never have driven the car alone without a competent companion beside him-. Ho is not and never has been the holder of a driving license.” Tn the coroner’s view, to handle for the first time at night on this dongcrous road a car such as this one with its unusual left-hand drive and unfamiliar position of the clutch, foot and hand brakes, accelerator, and other controls and its indifferent braking would have proved a sufficiently awkward task for a seasoned driver, for Hooker, relatively unfamiliar as he was with the handling of cars, to have undertaken it greatly increased the danger. , The death of these four people was, in the coroner ’s opinion, due. to the driver’s lack of skill and experience in iho handling of a car.