FATAL TAXI ACCIDENT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 40, 15 February 1913, Page 6

FATAL TAXI ACCIDENT.

DRIVER DEAD AT HIS SEAT BACK 'TYRE BLEW OUT. (Per Press Association.) Whangarei, February 15. A motor fatality occurred at Tougiteroria this morning. A party consisting of J. Hocy (owner and driver of the taxi), J. Richardson, N. Weaver, Massey (Whangarei), Knowles (representing Levin and Co., Wellington), left Tongiteroria at 8 o’clock. Richardson, interviewed over_ the telephone, states that the taxi was travelling on a good road at a medium pace when the hack tyre blew out, causing the car to slew round and turn completely over sideways. When he got up, after hemg thrown clear, he pulled someone from under the car, which was standing on its wheels, with Hocy still sitting on the driver’s sfeat dead. < •

The rest of the party were practically unhurt though badly shaken. Richardson, when speaking on the ’phone two hours after the accident, says: “It was so sudden, it was like going into a tunnel, and emerging into fresh scenes.” Apparently he is suffering severely from shock and is unnerved. Much of the conversation was unintelligible. Deceased leaves a wife and young family.