A DESPERATE CHANCE

Taranaki Daily News, 11 February 1928, Page 13

A DESPERATE CHANCE

SKILFUL BUS DRIVER.

THRILL FOR PASSENGERS.

The uncanny skill and coolness of Joseph Small, driver of a motor-bus on the road to National Park, averted an accident that might have meant death or serious injury to 20 passengers recently, says a Sydney paper. The bus was going down a steep hill when the driver saw two men crossing the road a few yards ahead of him. When in the centre of the road one of the men slipped and fell right in the path of the oncoming bus. The driver knew that lie had no chance of avoiding the man, and so he took a desperate chance. He swerved to tho side, and the bus tore up and over an embankment. There were terrified screams from the women as the huge bus veered on its side, and then plunged madly over, to drop Oft. The driver, grimly clinging to the wheel, and with his foot plunged hard down on the brakes, gave a desperate twist and the bus righted itself, to be brought to a standstill in a few more yards.

Apart from a severe shaking and shock, not one of the passengers was injured. Describing the sensational happening, a passenger ’ said that ho had

never witnessed such a magnificent exhibition of driving as had been given by the bus driver. Tho driver himself refused to give his name, and made light of the incident, although he confessed that it had given him as great a shock as any of the passengers. But he knew that his brakes were good, and would hold, he declared.