Lawyer admits injuring woman at intersection
A solicitor’s emotional state, bad weather and some bushes played into him failing to give way at a notorious Manawatū intersection, leaving another driver with serious injuries.
Brian Alwyn Gubb, 82, from Auckland, pleaded guilty in the Palmerston North District Court yesterday to careless driving causing injury in relation to the February 5 crash.
He crashed into the driver’s side of a woman’s car at the intersection of Kairanga Bunnythorpe and Longburn Rongotea roads to the west of Palmerston North that afternoon.
She suffered a broken vertebrate and ribs, spending a week in hospital. She needed to use a walker afterwards, could not go tramping due to her injuries and has become a nervous driver.
Defence lawyer Fergus Steedman said the rural intersection was problematic, with people avoiding it and similar ones in the area. ‘‘Maybe that’s local knowledge.’’
There were many trees and bushes on a particular corner of the intersection that reduced visibility, Steedman said.
The weather was poor at the time of the crash, while Gubb, who was driving from Waikanae to Feilding, had just spent time with friends for the first time since his wife died. ‘‘He thinks he would have been off-kilter emotionally,’’ Steedman said.
Gubb had no previous convictions and could only remember being in a minor crash in 1961.
Steedman said he tried to convince Gubb to apply for a discharge without conviction, but Gubb believed doing so would be wrong in the circumstances.
He wanted to pay $5000 on top of any reparation order to the victim to try to compensate for what had happened, Steedman said.
Judge Ian Carter disqualified Gubb from driving for sixmonths and ordered a total of $6100 in reparations.