RISKS OF MOTORISTS

Taranaki Daily News, 18 October 1930, Page 7

RISKS OF MOTORISTS

“DRUNK” ON PETROL FUMES. INCIDENT IN A GARAGE. A need for precaution by motorists is revealed by the experience of Mr. Jabez Brown, a business man of Newcastle, England. Driving his car from his garage a few weeks ago he suddenly felt dizzy and light-headed. Pulling up Mr. Brown alighted and found himself staggering in the road exactly as if he were under the influence pF drink. Passers-by stopped to stare at him. Many obviously thought that he had been drinking.

“I quickly realised my danger,” Mr. Brown said in relating the incident, “so I made straight for the nearest doctor’s ■ —which 'happened to be across the road —and asked him to examine me. I knew I had had nothing at all to drink, yet I felt exactly as if I was drunk. examined me, and after I had • explained the'circumstances to him the first question he asked was whether I had been running the engine of my car in a closed garage. I recollected that I had, and he; then said that I was obviously suffering from the effects of carbon-monoxide poisoning.” Mr. Brown had started up his car and then gone into the house to get some papers, leaving his engine running. Returning 10 minutes later he had tinkered round the vehicle with an oil-.pump before starting‘off. “I felt a little swimmy,” Mr. Brown said, “but I did not attach much importance to it because I thought I might be suffering from a touch of indigestion or something like that. Then, when I got into the car, the sickness seemed to overwhelm me.

“Every motorist ought to know of my experience, for it would have been a very serious matter for me if I had' been arrested for being drunk in charge of a car. Obviously I did the wisest thing possible by consulting a doctor immediately.” Prominent motorists expressed the view that Mr. Brown’s experience was far from being an uncommon one. “More than one motorist,” said one expert, “has been accused of being drunk when he was merely suffering from the effects of carbon-nionoxide poisoning.”