LONDON'S STREET DEATHS

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 59, Issue 75, 1 May 1930, Page 13

LONDON'S STREET DEATHS

COMMENIS BY COBONEP,, It was pitiful to think that of the ten people on whom he had held inquests in the course of a week, eight would 'be alive to-day if they had realised the dangers of the streets of London, said Mr Ingleby Oddie, the "YVestminster coroner, recently. "I am only one coroner out of seven in London," Mr Oddie said, "so you can see what an awful daily toll of human lives is heing demanded by the conditions of street traffic. In only two of these ten cases ean any criticism he levelled at the drivers of yehicles, Mr Oddie was holding an inquiry info the death of Thomas James'Pringle, aged 59, a clerk, who was fatally injured hy a hus in Piccadilly. A friend with him at the time was injured. A passenger in another 'bus said that Prin^gle, wlio was crossing from the Ritz Hotel, appeared to he hemmed in hy the traffic. He and his comjianion seemed to whirl round, and Pringle was caught by the omnibus. The other man was also knocked down. The hus driver said that the men stopped as if to let him pass, and then suddenly rau in front of him. If they had continued they would have heen safe. Returning a rerdict of accidental death, and exonerating the driver, the coroner commented on the fact that tlie men did not use a refuge, and said that to rnn across Piccadilly at night without doing so was to- invite' trouble.