Coroner urges driver licensing

At the conclusion of an inquest concerning the death of a returned soldier from injuries caused by a motor collision, the Gisborne coroner, Mr J.S. Barton SM, said he had visited the scene of the accident and found, according to the evidence, by the marks on the roadway, that the speed of the car could not have been less than 25 miles an hour. This was not a safe speed, and the car was not being driven as it should have been. The driver was a 14yearold girl. There was an anomaly that, while engineers were required to show qualification for running stationary engines, a child of 14 years was allowed to drive around the streets in a car of 40 horsepower. The driver of the car had not shown the discretion due from one controlling a motor car, but when the driver was a girl of 14 years, it was not reasonable to expect much discretion. His Worship took full responsibility for making the verdict an open one. He wished, however, to add the following rider: “In my opinion it is urgently necessary that the Gisborne Borough Council should legislate, firstly to provide a system of licensing drivers of motor cars, licences to be issued only to adult persons, each of whom prove to the satisfaction of the council his or her ability to handle or drive a motor car in borough traffic; secondly to prohibit under penalty the driving of a car by a person other than a licensed driver within the borough.”