Not another..?

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Mon 11 Mar 2002 14:13
Not another..? - Kevin

From last Tuesday's Globe and News (A Canadian Newspaper www.globeandnews.com)

QUOTE

Driver, 84, knew of body, inquest told
Tuesday, March 5, 2002 - Print Edition, Page A18

Black marks and a trail of human tissue on the roadway tell the story of an 84-year-old motorist who knew she had struck Beth Kidnie and tried to dislodge the body from underneath her vehicle, a coroner's jury was told yesterday.

Detective Bohdan Sybydlo, a collision expert with Toronto Police,
testified that while some of the marks were straight, others showed that the driver had swerved back and forth.

"It resembled a driving manoeuvre a motorist would use to dislodge something under the car, such as a cardboard box," he said.

Asked by coroner's counsel Tom Schneider if he concluded from the marks that the driver was aware that there was something under her car, the 28-year veteran officer replied: "Yes."

Yesterday was the first day in a two-week inquest that will explore the relationship between age and the ability to drive safely.

The jury of three men and two women is looking into the death of the 42-year-old mother of three on the night of April 4, 2000. Ms. Kidnie was out for her nightly walk and was crossing Bloor Street West at Markland Drive in Etobicoke on a green light when she was struck by a vehicle turning right. She was sucked underneath the 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and dragged nearly a kilometre to her death.

Her battered body came free of the car when the driver, Pilar Hicks, then 84, drove into her driveway. She had driven the short distance from her son's house at a speed not exceeding 15 kilometres an hour.

The widow and grandmother said at her trial last year that she became aware of the collision only the next morning when police interviewed her.

She pleaded not guilty to criminal negligence causing death but was convicted and given a 15-month conditional sentence to be served in her home.

Mrs. Hicks, now 86, will not testify because of her age and the trauma she suffered as a result of the incident, Mr. Schneider told the hearing. But her son, William Hicks, will be a witness.

/QUOTE

Additional reports seem to indicate that the victim died as a result of being dragged along the road, rather than the impact itself.

Kevin...
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