ERRATIC MOTOR CAR

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17454, 31 December 1930, Page 7

ERRATIC MOTOR CAR

CONSTABLE TESTS BRAKES SECOND COLLISION RESULTS (Special to the Herald.) AUCKLAND, Ibis day. Considerable amusement was occasioned at the Auckland railway station on the arrival of Wellington delegates to the convention of the New Zealand Society of Magicians, now being held in Auckland, by the destructive behavior of a .motor car driven by one of the magicians. It first collided with another car while turning into the ramp from Beach road, and five minutes Inter, while its brakes were being tested by a police constable, it crashed into a second car, inflicting inr from illusionary damage on both.

The magician and the constable were unaccustomed to the particular arrangement of the car’s foot brake and accelerator pedal, mistaking the one for the other. The car had been borrowed from a relative, the driver’s own car having unexpectedly developed a punctured tyre, and instead of applying the brake . the accelerator was .depressed. The car Shot forward into the rear oT a big limousine, crumpling the bodywork and buckling the mudguards. While the damage was being examined a constable arrived on, t hy scene, demanding' to know whether the brakes were in order, file expressed a desire to tokt them' himself, and, stepping into the driver’s seat took the ear for a short trial spin, lie had only proceeded a few yards when a car of the baby variety stopped in front. The policeman jammed hard on what he imagined was the foot brake, but pressed the accelerator violently instead. The car put on a sudden rush of speed, and collided for a second time, the smaller car sustaining a certain amount of damage.

The dual accident occurred a! (>.30 a.m., lust before the arrival of the first Wellington express, and a small crowd of taxi -drivers and early pedestrians wore amused witnesses of the ill-starred trial spin. A wordy argument arose as to who should carry the responsibility for I ho damage, the magician or the policeman, but the problem was left undetermined, a majority of the bystanders maintaining that the constable, being engaged on His Majesty’s lawful business, was immune from liability. By some magical stroke of fortune the belligerent car escaped from the combat with hardly a scratch. A subsequent examination revealed that , its accelerator pedal and footbrnke were bent very close together, requiring an intimate acquaintance to .the operator. In its owner's hands no difficulty had been experienced.