RUNAWAY CARS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 170, 20 July 1936, Page 8

RUNAWAY CARS.

TRAGEDIES AVERTED.

INCIDENTS IN AUCKLAND

LUCK WITZf PEDESTRIANS

Two cases of runaway cars crossing busy city streets have occurred without loss to human life or limb in the past few days. In each case a wonderful degree of luck prevented what might have been a tragedy.

The first incident occurred when a large tourer, with engine running, ran out from Lome Street and crossed Wellesley Street a few minutes before 5 p.m. At a moment when no foot, motor or tram traffic was moving across its path, the runaway crossed the tramlines and crashed into a stationary sedan car, seriously damaging it. The force of the impact lifted the stationary vehicle two or three feet 011 to the footpath.

The second' incident took place 011 Saturday night. A taxi standing just above the tram terminus at the foot of Customs Street West, ran away and jumped the curb, travelled the whole length of the footpath from Little Queen Street, and then crossed the busiest inter-section in the city without encountering a single tram, motor vehicle, or pedestrian. A man ran alongside, opened a door, and jumped in as the car slowed up in Customs Street East. A child had been in the rear seat 'during the car's career.

The first person to become aware of the runaway ear was a young man whe had an amazing escape. He had stepped into the doorway of a flight of steps, and was looking down the roadway when the car shot past, grazing the concrete supports of the building. This fact undoubtedly saved the lives of at least some of the two dozen or more people standing 011 the footpath awaiting incoming trains, for the ear swerved slightly outwards and left the footpath between a drinking faucet 011 the left and a brake-box 011 the right. The young man shouted as the ear passed iiim. and a woman looked up and screajned as she rushed aside, and this served as a warning to the other people in the path of the runaway. f