SPEEDING CAR HAS CLOSE CALL

Taupo Times, Volume III, Issue 142, 15 October 1954, Page 2

SPEEDING CAR HAS CLOSE CALL

MAIN STREET INCIDENT About ten thirty p.m. on a recent night residents near the foot of Tongariro Street heard the sound of a car travelling f ast down the street. There was a sudden noise of brakes suddenly applied and then silence. Investigation showed a large old model car alftiost touching the trunk of a flowering gum tree growing between the Lake front roadway and the edge of the Lake shore cliff, a few feet from the latter. The driver of the car backed away from the tree and slowly proceeded along the Lake front. Examination next morning disclosed that thef car, on nearing the Roberts Street intersection, had continued straight on where the white centre line begins to bend left. Just as the car was leaving the tar-seal, on its incorrect side of the highway, the brakes had been applied hard, and the car pulled round to the left sufficiently to head it straight for the tree. It had then travelled ninety feet in a straight line and come to a halt with the front wheels six feet from the tree-trunk. The length of the car's travel after the brakes were applied indicates that itx must have been travelling at least 40 mile per hour as it crossed the tar-seal on its wrong side of the main street intersection with Roberts Street and the Lake Front road. Apparently the driver, travelling at that speed in the main street 30 m.p.h. area, realised that the Lake cliff was ahead when he noted the white centre line bending left, but was unable to take the curve.