DEATH AT THE WHEEL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 233, 1 October 1929, Page 8

DEATH AT THE WHEEL

TAXI-DRIVER’S COLLAPSE HEROISM OF AUSTRALIAN GIRL LONDON, Sept. 17. Miss Beverley Jackson, of Melbourne, who was a debutante at His Majesty’s Court last year, was the heroine of a .tragic West End taxicab drama. While Miss Jackson was taking her trunks to a steamer the driver of the taxicab fell dead at the wheel in a busy street crowded, with traffic. With superb courage, Miss Jackson climbed out on to tho running board, grasped the brake, and slowed down the taxi, averting what might have been a very serious accident. Miss Jackson’s statement was read at the inquest, and the coroner paid a tribute to “this competent young woman who put on tho brakes instead of shrieking and fainting, as people did half a century ago.” “I am not given to fainting and shrieking,” said Miss Jackson, in an interview. “1 did the only reasonable thing. “I was taking my trunks to the steamer, when I saw the driver fall sideways. The vehicle, travelling at 15 miles an hour, was heading for a tree. I climbed on the off-side running-board while the taxi was zigzagging across the road, put up my hand, stopping an omnibus, grasped the brake, and slowed down. A messenger boy jumped on the other side and steered to the side of the road. “I was not frightened, but I was disgusted by the morbid way people crowded round to look at the dead driver. His death shocked me; I had never seen anybody dead before.” Miss Jackson, who has been educated in Europe, is leaving for Australia this week with her mother and stepfather, Major C. 8. Cunningham.