Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Tuesday 23 October 1928

Cyclists Furious Riding.

Racing Machine That Fatally Injured Dustman.

How a cyclist knocked down dustman, who died from his injuries, was described at Rotherham West Riding Court, yesterday, when William Henry Northcliffe, a trammer, of Oak Road, Wath, was fined £3 and £1 1s 6d. costs for having ridden bicycle, furiously on September 26th.

Mr. R. W. Smith, of Wakefield, prosecuting on behalf the police, said that, at 10.30 a.m. on September 26th, James Ball end John Gregory, employed by Wath Urban District Council, were emptying sanitary dust bins. They had just carried bin across the road and emptied into the lorry. Ball started to walk diagonally across the road, but he was knocked down when he was about six yards from the lorry. Defendant was riding a racing machine.

Gregory, in evidence, estimated the speed of the bicycle at about thirty miles an hour, he heard no warning given, said, and the impact occurred in the middle of the road.

Another man estimated the speed at twenty miles an hour.

The defendant told the Bench he was going down Sandygate Road at ten miles an hour when Ball stepped out from the side of the lorry and appeared to “dance” about in the middle of the road.

He himself applied his brakes, but was unable to avoid collision.