DANGEROUS OCCUPATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22344, 15 February 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

DANGEROUS OCCUPATION

MAN WHO CHEATS DEATH YOUNG LONDONER'S THRILLS CAR "CRASHING" FOR A LIVING Not satisfied with having "crashed" 300 cars in the last two or three years, a young Londoner, known as "Hell's Driver," whom no insurance company will accept as a life risk, is looking for further dangerous occupations. Failing anything else, ho has ideas of driving full-sized and powerful cars on a "wall of death." He is Frederick S. Foster, son of a coachman in Buckingham Gate, who, for 16 years, has driven cars in India, Africa, Egypt and England. He has probably been "sacked" more times than aiiy other man, for each time he undertakes one of his "crashing" stunts he is automatically discharged by the firm that employs him. He does his dangerous jobs entirely at his own risk, being re-engaged afterwards. Nobody talking to Foster would regard him as a man who cheats death for a living. Modest, but with a quiet confidence in his own ability to emerge scatheless from the worst of crashes, ho maintains that in spite of his dangerous occupation he hopes to live to an old age. Overturning cars, jumping them over obstacles, and diving them into rivers are all in the day's work to him. People may wonder what is the use of crashing cars, but motor firms learn many lessons about the strength and stability of cars in this way. His most dangerous exploit he regards as the last he did—for a film—in which

he drove an eight cylinder, two-seater sports car into a river at 70 miles an hour. "I drove the car down a slipway at the side of a bridge," he told an interviewer, "and it rose 25ft., covered 75ft. through the air like an aeroplane, and landed in the water on all four wheels unharmed; but, two feet in front of me was the brick wall of an old mill. Another five miles an hour and—

"People often ask me whether I know what the result of a crash is going to be. Up to a point I do. First of all, there is the question of speed. I always prefer to do my 'stunts' at high speed.

"Speed is my most important factor. In fact, the motto on which I invariably work is 'the faster the safer.' Once a crash has started I can determine the end of it by my own driving, but that is all. I cannot prevent it happening. All I can do is to do something toward helping it to end in the way I want, and to take care of myself a little.

"To show what speed means to me, I did my river dive a second time, but only at 30 miles an hour, instead of 70. The moment I left the landing-stage I knew things were going to happen. The

car was like a drunken elephant to control, and eventually landed dead in the centre of the river in a perfect nosedive. It was touch and go. Had the car turned over I should have been trapped under water, with three tons bulk over me.

"However, fate was kind, and the car settled with a splash on all four wheels. I was a little bruised, but safe and sound. Quite a thrill, but to me all in the day's work. "After 16 years on the track, and three years of 'stunting,' I'm still learning to drive. Many people, after a couple of vears on the road, think they are first-class drivers. My own view is that in driving a car no one has ever finished learning. I still say I am not a perfect driver. "If people would realise this, and if they knew as I do the antics a car can get up to 'in skiddy weather, they would drive much more cautiously than they do, and accidents on the road would be fewer. . "The most curious thing about my job is the number of people who ask me if I will crash their cars for them, so that they can draw the insurance money. Needless to say, I always refuse."