SENSATIONAL SKIDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 July 1941, Page 6

SENSATIONAL SKIDS

SERIES OF ACCIDENTS AT SOCKBURN

CAUSED BY ICE FILM ON ROAD.

CYCLIST & MOTORIST INJURED

ißy Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Two persons, a cyclist and a motorist, were injured in a sensational series of accidents occurring at Curlett’s Corner, on the Main South Road at Sockburn, this morning. Many others escaped injury by the proverbial hairsbreadth. Five motor-cars left the road, two crashing into telegraph poles, two careering into ditches on either side of the road and one tearing its way through a scrub fence. ■'.» In addition, many cyclists came to grief and took some hard tumbles on the paved surface of the road and were lucky to suffer no broken bones. The cause of the trouble was a stretch of approximately half a mile of thin ice covering the surface of the road. Moisture deposited on the paved surface during the night had formed itself into a film of ice more slippery than glass, and motorists and cyclists coming on it unexpectedly from the south or north found their brakes of no use. In fact it was the application of brakes that caused skids from which a series of smashes resulted. Cars hitting the ice travelled only a few yards before commencing broadsides that generally ended in a smash, though some were able to straighten up and run the gauntlet without mishap. One small car made five complete turns on the crown of the road before its driver was able to pull it out of the skid and bring it to a halt.

The cyclist who was injured was struck from behind by a car which was travelling in the same direction. When the driver of the car applied his breaks, his car shot forward and a collision occurred, the cyclist being carried along in front of the car for more than two chains before the car stopped. The cyclist was removed to the hospital at the Wigram Aerodrome. Another collision involved a motorist and a meat van. the motorist being injured. His car. after making contact with the ice, skidded and struck a trailer which was being towed behind the van.