Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 297, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1910 — TYRO IN RUNAWAY AUTOMOBILE [ARTICLE]

TYRO IN RUNAWAY AUTOMOBILE

“Were you ever in a runaway automobile going about thirty miles an hour; yourself the only person in the machine and about as ignorant of the means of stopping the thing as of flying without wings?” ; This Question was asked the other day by a patched-up individual who limped into a downtown cigar store, where a number of his friends were congregated. His face was swathed In bandages; one eye was encircled with black and blue marks and his loose clothing testified to the loss of about thirty pounds of weight. “Yes, it was an automobile accident,” he said in answer to solicitous Inquiries as to his changed appearance. "I never want to ride in one of the things again, either!” he added, “or, if I do, it will be only after I study the mechanism of the car so I will know what to do if, I ani ever placed in a similar predicament. “I started out on a little ride through the north side boulevards, about three weeks ago,” the sufferer explained. “I was in a friend’s machine and he was at the wheel. I’d been in an automobile a lot of times before, of course, but I didn’t know a thing about running them. “Well, we were running along about thirty miles an hour. Yes, a little above the speed limits, I’ll admit, but we were both sober and my friend was skilled in the handling of the machine. Suddenly the accident happened. A wagon was backing up on one side of the street and the polo projected out in front as the horses strained backward with the load. My friend drove pretty close to the pole. I thought, and in a second I' realized that he was no ,on S er beside me in the car. That wagon pole had suddenly Jerked forward in some way and swept him right out Of the seat, i “Can you beat that for a situation?*’ asked the injured one. “The car jumped ahead, of course, and I sud-

denly realized my plight. I remembered in a flash that there were about a dozen levers, brakes, handles and buttons to work in such an emergency and they might as well have been only one so far as I was concerned, because I didn’t knGw the first thing to do. There were a million other automobiles in the street and wagons and people crossing everywhere and there I was in that crazy machine which seemed to have increased its speed about double. By this time I had climbed into the

chauffeur’s seat and had grabbed the wheel. Sure, I was rattled. Who wouldn’t have been? I saw another machine right in front of me and about eight others, trying to butt me off the street from all sides. A policeman yelled and I turned the wheel the wrong way.” “I Just got out pf the hospital an hour ago and I haven’t yet heqrd what became of my friend. Anybody read lately of an automobile accident of the kind I have described where one of the passengers was killed?