DEATH AT THE WHEEL

Hokitika Guardian, 2 October 1929, Page 7

DEATH AT THE WHEEL

TAXI DRIVER'S COLLAPSE,

LONDON, September 17

Miss Beverly Jackson, of Melbourne, who was a debutante at his Majesty’s Court last year, was the heroine of a tragic “West End taxi cab drama. While Miss Jackson was taking her truints to a steamer the driver of the taxi cab fell dead at the wheel in a busy steet crowded with traffic. With superb courage, Miss Jackson climbed out on to the running board, grasped the brake, and slowed down the taxi, averting, what might have been a very serious accident. Miss Jackson’s statement was read at tne inquest, and the coroner paid a tribute to ‘'this competent young woman who nut on the brakes instead of shrieking and fainting, as people did half a century ago.” “I am not given to fainting and shrieking” said Miss Jackson, in an interview: ‘‘l did the only reasonable thing.” “I. was taking my trunks to the steamer, when 1 saw the driver fall sideways. The vehicle, travelling at 15 miles an hour, was heading for a tree. I climbed on the off-side running board while the taxi was zigzagging across the road, put up my hand, slopping an omnibus, grasped the brake, and slowed down. A messenger hoy jumped on the other side and steered to the side of the road. “I was not frightened, hut I was disgusted by the morbid way people crowded round 1o look at the (lead driver. His death shocked me; T had never seen anybody dead before.” Miss Jackson, who has been educated in Europe, is leaving for Australia this week with her mother and stepfather, Major C. S. Cunningham.