Runaway Car 1930

 Please readers, be careful out there when you are driving over the holidays.

The Vincennes (Ind.) Commercial, December 27, 1930 Lyman Emmons Automobile Leaves Parking Place; Runs Down Hill.

 RUNAWAY CAR CUTS UP ANTICS

 Lawrenceville, Ill. Dec. 28—Lyman Emmons is undecided today as to whether or not he is the victim of bad luck, following a peculiar incident that happened on Christmas day.

Mr. Emmons parked his automobile in front of the B. O. Sumner residence, between Seventh and Eighth Streets, on State Street, about 2:30 in the afternoon and went to the door of the home where he stood knocking for a few minutes. Realizing that no one was at home he turned around and started toward his car, when he discovered that no car was there. He looked around, believing that someone had decided to play a prank on him and drive it away, when his attention was drawn to his automobile which was just disappearing from sight backing over the hill eastward. He ran to the top of the hill nearby where he saw his car cutting all sorts of antics as it progressed rapidly down the hill, dodging all traffic that was in its wake.

 As it neared the Loftus home, it ran into the curbing and bouncing back, it turned into the Loftus rounded drive.

It came out of the drive, crossed the street and after hesitating an instant, started rolling down the street again, this time heading in the direction it was going.

Gathering speed as it rolled along it crashed into a telephone pole near the E. C. Cunningham home and came to a stop only after it had clipped the pole in two, some seven feet above the ground with the upper part of the pole attached to the wires and swinging in the Christmas breezes. No other damage was done to the car other than a punctured radiator, a broken bumper and a dented fender, all of which was remedied at the repair shop today.

Earlier in the day Mr. Emmons accompanied by three small children in the family, had been paying Christmas calls in the same neighborhood and he is marveling that the incident did not occur when his family was in the car.