Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 03 June 1932
Cyclist Killed
Collision with Van at Old Denaby
Home from Canada
A road accident at Old Denaby on Monday which resulted in the death of Edwin Severn (20). 7, Hewitt Street, Mexborough, was the subject of an inquiry at the Fullerton Hospital, Denaby, on Wednesday, by Mr. W. H. Carlile.
Joseph Severn, the youth’s lather, said his son recently returned home from Canada where he had been farming. He last saw him alive at 8 p.m. on Monday after being called out of the pit. “My boy was lying unconscious in the hospital. He bad been riding an almost new bicycle and 1 think he left home about 2.30 to visit some relatives at the Parsonage, Old Denaby. Witness added that his son had been riding bicycles since he left school.
Cutting A Corner.
The driver of the van involved, John Robert Dodds, Copley Rouse, Sprotborough Park, a milk dealer, told the Coroner that he was driving from Sprotborough to Old Denaby on Monday about 5.30 p.m. “I was passing through Old Denaby, the road being straight. I knew of the road leading up to the Old Vicarage and I was going at about 20 miles an hour on my proper side of the road. There is a high hedge at the corner of the road to the Old Vicarage which stops vision of anything on that road. I never sounded my hooter because it is not a main thoroughfare. When I got right on the corner, I saw the youth on a bicycle about two yards off me. He was coming pretty fast and cutting across the corner. I applied my brakes but he made straight into my front wing. He bounced up into the air off his machine and I think he struck his head on the van top and then fell into the roadway. I stopped within a yard.”
A Nasty Hedge.
Witness added that he went to Severn and found he was unconscious. He secured assistance got Severn into the van and took him to the Fullerton Hospital.
The Coroner: What part of the road was he on when he struck your van?—He was on his wrong side, cutting across the corner.
Could you have avoided him?—No. because he was too close on me when I first saw him.
Would you have seen him if the hedge had been lower?—l do not think so, because my van is very low.
Witness said he had been driving for fifteen years. “I do not think the lad had control of his machine owing to the speed lie was travelling.”
Answering the father, witness said the lad would have seen the van top it the hedge had been lower, because the boy was coming down a gradient.
A juryman: It is a nasty hedge.
Van Driver Exonerated.
P.c. Holmes gave evidence of measuring the road at the scene of the accident. There were marks showing where each vehicle had travelled and that the cyclist had come round the corner on his wrong side. The hedge had a maximum height of nine feet and obstructed all view from the main road.
Dr, J. McArthur, of Denaby, said he saw Severn shortly after his admission to hospital. He was unconscious and suffering from double fracture of the left lower jaw, a fracture at the base of the skull and other facial injuries. Severn died the same evening, death being due to cerebral hemorrhage.
P.c. Holmes, recalled, said the front wheel of Severn’s machine was smashed, the handle bars and frame bars bent. The only marks on the van were dents in the top and the edge of the front nearside mudguard.
The Coroner said he thought it was definitely established that Severn was riding fast down the road and cut the corner. “There is no traffic of consequence using the lane and I do not know whether you (the jury) will agree that the farmer be asked to cut it down to a reasonable height”
A verdict of “Accidental death, the driver being exonerated from blame,” was returned, the jury adding that the Coroner ask the farmer to cut down the hedge.