On This Day in Wembury — 3 October 1940
At Plymouth magistrates’ court, Frank Alfred Dawe, 41, a painter of Windy Ridge, Church Road, Wembury, was fined £5 with costs and had his licence endorsed after pleading guilty to dangerous driving.
The case followed a tragic accident at St. Budeaux on 20 August. Dawe’s car mounted the pavement, knocking down four pedestrians and killing one. The Deputy Chief Constable, W. T. Hutchings, said Dawe had come downhill at excessive speed, encountered a stationary lorry, and was unable to brake or steer away in time, the camber of the road forcing him onto the pavement.
Dawe’s counsel, H. Lawrence Spear, said his client was “completely baffled” by what had happened. Two workmen were passengers in the car, neither of whom had seen any cause for concern. “One second he was in the road and the next on the pavement,” Mr. Spear told the court. The car itself was found mechanically sound.
This case highlights the very different standards of road safety in wartime Britain. Motor traffic was lighter than today, yet the risks were no less deadly. The fine and licence endorsement may seem lenient by modern measures, but courts of the 1940s often treated such incidents as tragic misfortune rather than reckless crime.
Source: Western Morning News, 3 October 1940