Car Crashes Through Doorway

Northern Advocate, 18 March 1939, Page 6

Car Crashes Through Doorway

Having been left in reverse gear, a car leaped backwards when the motor fired as it was being cranked in Messrs. D. McL. Wallace Ltd.’s premises, Walton Street, last evening, and smashed through a large pair of double doors, to come to rest across the footpath.

The car was being cranked by Mr. F. C. H. Cowan, manager of the firm’s Whangarei branch, and a member of the Whangarei Borough Council. Mr. Cowan is shortly to leave Whangarei for Auckland, where he will enter the bakery business.

The doors gave way under the impact, and fell across’ the footpath on to another vehicle parked against the kerb.

The runaway car attempted to mount the ramp so formed, but fortunately stalled in the effort, otherwise anything, might have happened.

It was fortunate that there was nobody on the footpath at the time, and also that the car happened to be in reverse instead of in one of the forward gears, otherwise Mr. Cowan would have suffered serious injury.

Both cars were fairly extensively damaged, while the doors, which took the full force of the shock, were badly smashed.

FOLLOWING complaints to the Mayor of Wellington, Mr. T. C. A. Hislop, about the siren noises of the fire brigade at night, a lengthy report was submitted to the Fire Board by the superintendent of the brigade, in which he pointed out, inter alia, that the sirens must be loud enough not only to act as a stop warning to vehicles being overtaken, but also to warn traffic in side streets. The board decided to send the report to the city council, and appointed the chairman and the superintendent to confer with the Transport Department.

The cruiser H.M.S. Sussex picked up an S.O.S. from the British steamer Stangrove off the south-east coast of Spain, reports an Independent Cable Service message.