#accidents — Public Fediverse posts

https://www.europesays.com/fr/1171039/ VIDÉO. Un père et son fils meurent à bord d’une Lamborghini dans un accident sur l’autoroute A3 #accidents #actu #ActualitéEnContinu #Actualités #EU #europe #FR #France #IleDeFrance #News #Paris #RépubliqueFrançaise #SeineSaintDenis #une #Voiture

New Kennedy Center damage renews call for Trump-backed renovations

WASHINGTON (AP) — A chunk of ceiling fell inside a main hallway of the Kennedy Center, according to…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #Accidents #APTopNews #ChristopherCooper #DCWire #DistrictofColumbia #donald-j-trump #Entertainment #Generalnews #JohnF.Kennedy #Politics #UnitedStates #Us #USA #Washingtonnews
https://www.newsbeep.com/720106/

2013 Chevrolet Aveo Accident Update:

impact to the front left side

airbags did not deploy

driver uninjured

insurance payout: €1,034

car value (pre-accident): €1,589

repair cost: €3,012.71 (estimated)

date of accident: 20–25 July

repair: next week

#chevrolet #aveo #accident #cars #costs #automobile #caraccident #accidents #portugal #santarem #lusogeek #streamer #creator #gamer

New Kennedy Center damage renews call for Trump-backed renovations

WASHINGTON (AP) — A chunk of ceiling fell inside a main hallway of the Kennedy Center, according to…
#UnitedStates #US #USA #Accidents #APTopNews #ChristopherCooper #DCWire #DistrictofColumbia #donaldjtrump #Entertainment #generalnews #johnfkennedy #Politics #trump #Washingtonnews
https://www.europesays.com/3234862/

Serbia’s ruling populist propose Vucic as prime minister https://www.byteseu.com/2338821/ #2026Elections #Accidents #AleksandarVučić #Corruption #Elections #EuropeanUnion #GeneralNews #PoliticalAndCivilUnrest #PoliticalViolence #Politics #ProtestsAndDemonstrations #RailAccidents #Serbia #WorldNews

Fallen tree blocked access to Jubilee Avenue in Fakenham

Access to a residential road was restricted after a large tree came crashing down this morning. Workers have…
#NewsBeep #News #Environment #Accidents #environment #Science #TrafficandTravel #Transport #UK #UnitedKingdom
https://www.newsbeep.com/uk/760354/

https://www.europesays.com/uk/1187033/ Fallen tree blocked access to Jubilee Avenue in Fakenham #Accidents #Environment #Science #TrafficAndTravel #Transport #UK #UnitedKingdom

The Art Itself is Nature — Shakespeare / Art is but Nature Better Understood — Pope (1841) by Charles Ellms, from The Tragedy of the Seas; or, Sorrow on the Ocean, Lake, and River, from Shipwreck, Plague, Fire and Famine.

Source: Library of Congress / Internet Archive

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/500e3ec6-2630-4c8f-9aaf-701281976408

#ships #water #nature #accidents #propellers #disaster #sea #oceans #shipwrecks #art #publicdomain

The Art Itself is Nature — Shakespeare / Art is but Nature Better Understood — Pope (1841) by Charles Ellms, from The Tragedy of the Seas; or, Sorrow on the Ocean, Lake, and River, from Shipwreck, Plague, Fire and Famine.

Source: Library of Congress / Internet Archive

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/500e3ec6-2630-4c8f-9aaf-701281976408

#ships #water #nature #accidents #propellers #disaster #sea #oceans #shipwrecks #art #publicdomain

The Art Itself is Nature — Shakespeare / Art is but Nature Better Understood — Pope (1841) by Charles Ellms, from The Tragedy of the Seas; or, Sorrow on the Ocean, Lake, and River, from Shipwreck, Plague, Fire and Famine.

Source: Library of Congress / Internet Archive

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/500e3ec6-2630-4c8f-9aaf-701281976408

#ships #water #nature #accidents #propellers #disaster #sea #oceans #shipwrecks #art #publicdomain

The Art Itself is Nature — Shakespeare / Art is but Nature Better Understood — Pope (1841) by Charles Ellms, from The Tragedy of the Seas; or, Sorrow on the Ocean, Lake, and River, from Shipwreck, Plague, Fire and Famine.

Source: Library of Congress / Internet Archive

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/500e3ec6-2630-4c8f-9aaf-701281976408

#ships #water #nature #accidents #propellers #disaster #sea #oceans #shipwrecks #art #publicdomain

The Art Itself is Nature — Shakespeare / Art is but Nature Better Understood — Pope (1841) by Charles Ellms, from The Tragedy of the Seas; or, Sorrow on the Ocean, Lake, and River, from Shipwreck, Plague, Fire and Famine.

Source: Library of Congress / Internet Archive

https://pdimagearchive.org/images/500e3ec6-2630-4c8f-9aaf-701281976408

#ships #water #nature #accidents #propellers #disaster #sea #oceans #shipwrecks #art #publicdomain

Horseless Carriages: the thread about the first motor car in Edinburgh and Scotland (and why motoring began with deliberate law breaking)

I’ve been waiting for July 19th to write this. On this exact day – 127 years ago – something momentous happened. Something that would change Edinburgh, and Scotland, forever: The first ever motor car entered the city, on the first ever (legal) cross-county drive in Scotland. Thomas R. Barnwell Elliot of Cliftonpark, Kelso, had been causing a stir in the south of Scotland ever since he imported his 3.5hp Panhard et Levassor Phaeton “horseless carriage” from France in December 1895. It was the first motor car imported into Scotland, the 7th in the UK.

At this time, the Locomotives Acts, meant any “locomotives” (which included motor cars) on the road were limited to 4mph (country) and 2mph (city), and a man had to walk 20 yards in front. (The red flag requirement of popular lore was actually abolished by the Locomotive Act 1878.) Barnewall Elliot was the son of the Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Roxburghshire, and had been given exemption by the county constabulary from the restrictions of this act within their borders, unless any specific complaints were raised against him.

The July 17th trip took him from Kelso, via Edinburgh and Stirling, to the Highland Show at South Inch in Perth. The Provost of Perth had invited him to demonstrate his contraption there and had gained an exemption for this journey from the 14 police jurisdictions he had to pass through.

The car had been imported via the Daimler Syndicate (hence sometimes referred to as such). It had a 2hp engine, weighted 1 ton, had iron tyres, tiller steering, no radiator, ran on petrol (at the rate of 1pint / hour), had a range of 100 miles and could do 12mph on the flat. It could seat 4 persons, but on any sort of a gradient 3 of them would have to get out and walk. Barnewall Elliot took his first drive in it on December 27th 1895 and made local news headlines (and turned many a Roxburghshire head) when he drove the 50 miles from Kelso to Ladykirk in it on 31st January 1896. On February 2nd, he went to Jedburgh, where Inspector Dickson of the Constabulary stopped him. However, after a brief check of the facts and that all was in order, he went on his way again and proceeded along the Jed water.

On 19th March though he did something he shouldn’t have: he drove it over both county and country borders and into Northumberland. When he was stopped by the Police in Berwick, he agreed with them that he was “probably breaking the law” and he was charged. This was deliberate on Barnewall Elliot’s part, he was trying to force a test case, and was successful. He admitted to the magistrates that he drove at “up to 14mph“, defending himself with the contention that his motor car was not a locomotive as defined in those acts. The magistrates were sympathetic, but stuck to the letter of the law. Describing Barnewall Elliot as a “most obliging defendant” they found him guilty, buy only with failing to have a man walk 20 yards in front of him and fined him a total of… 6 pence! (plus 19s 7d costs)

These events made Barnewall Elliot something of a household name in Scotland. At this time, the organisers of the Highland Show were keen to have an exhibition of motor cars as it was felt they would be of great transport use to country farmers, and so Barnewall Elliot – a gentleman farmer – was the perfect man for the job. He accepted their invitation and “those who witnessed [his demonstration] were struck by its easiness and steady progress“.

He had bought his car for £250 (c. £27k in 2023). After driving a few thousand miles in it he sold it in October 1896 for £112 in order to buy another. He suffered 55% depreciation on account of the crummy build quality of these early vehicles.

But although his was the first motor car imported into Scotland, and although he made the first legal road journeys in it, it was not actually the first horseless carriage in Scotland. That honour goes to Glaswegian locomotive engineer George Johnston. ohnston had been engaged by the Glasgow Corporation to build a tramcar that did not require electricity or horses. He came up with an oil-fuelled steam tram. Unfortunately it burned down before it could really prove its worth. Johnston went back to the drawing board.

He gave up on the idea of the steam tram and having seen a motor car in operation, decided he could build one of those too, but better. He imported a Panhard chassis and Daimler engine via Leith and combined them with a “dog cart” carriage body in late 1895. Very early in the morning of November 12th that year, Johnston took his machine for a test run through the streets of Glasgow. He knew full well he was breaking the law and even invited a journalist for the Scotsman along for the ride.

Not long after midnight, they set out from Springburn, taking Buchanan Street, to cross the city. They went along the Broomielaw to Shawlands “and back by a more circuitous way“. They deliberately tested a range of road surfaces, noting that macadam roads gave the best ride. The 3 occupants noted “the feeling of greatest exhilaration” on the Parliamentary Road when Johnston took them up to the giddy speed 12mph. The Glasgow Polismen on their early morning beats were dumbfounded and didn’t know what to do. The law caught up with Johnston on January 24th 1896, when he was convicted by Judge Mitchell in the Glasgow Police Court and given a token fine of 2s 6d. He would go on to become one of Scotland’s most successful early motor engineers under the Arrol-Johnston name.

While Glasgow and Kelso took an early lead in motoring, the Edinburgh Evening News noted “Edinburgh people… Did not readily take to innovations and preferred to wait until they gained experience from others.” We can be confident that Barnewall Elliot indeed brought the first car to Edinburgh because when the Locomotive Acts were repealed on 14th November 1896, the Evening News reported there were no cars in the city at that point and his had been the only one to pass through up until then. Despite the repeal of the Acts, it was not until 11th December that another car came to Edinburgh, when Glaswegian firm Colosseum Warehouse Co. brought a Daimler with a taxi cab body to the city and gave rides in it. It took until February 1897 for a citizen of Edinburgh to troubled themselves to get a car, when Mr John Drew of Belford Road exhibited an “almost noiseless” electric car of the Neale type that he had built.

It was not long thereafter that the Rossleigh Cycle Company (named for partners Thomas Ross and the Sleigh brothers) went into the chauffeuring business with a number of Daimler Dogcarts acquired for the purpose. Driver Thomas Morrison is seen here in Holyrood Park in 1897.

On 22nd September 1899, Sarah Renicks, a domestic servant from Broxburn, was the first reported person to be knocked down by a car, when a vehicle of the Edinburgh Autocar Co. hit her as she stepped off a tram on Princes Street. She sued for £150. In January 1900, the Edinburgh Autocar Co. was again in court, having knocked down Thomas Woolard in Newington. Sheriff Maconochie however found that the car was not being driven in a “furious and reckless manner” and that the pedestrian was at fault for not looking. In April 1900, James Collins of Duncan Street, Newington, was fined £5 (or 20 days imprisonment) for having driven his car in a “reckless and careless manner” on Lothian Road and crashed into a horse and carriage.

On June 16th 1902, the first pedestrian fatality as the result of being knocked down by a motor car took place on Princes Street. Christina Currie, 56, of Cumberland Street was hit by a vehicle being driven by Thomas Morrison as she crossed the street at the foot of the Mound. A policeman on tram points duty witnessed the event, and estimated the accused had driven at 15mph. He said he had tried to stop the vehicle but it had not. Other witnesses put the speed between 12 – 17mph. The defendant stated the victim had stepped out from behind a tramcar. A jury took only half an hour to find Morrison not guilty, however the foreman expressed “their strong disapproval of the too common practice of driving motor cars in crowded thoroughfares at too high speeds and without due regard to the safety of the public“.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

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When the brakes don’t work: the thread about runaway trams

On this day in 1918 (June 23rd when written) there was an “Extraordinary Tramway Incident” in Edinburgh as a result of which, miraculously, nobody was hurt. This was the days of cable traction, when the city’s public transport wound its way slowly and noisily around the streets hauled by an endless loop of moving cable beneath the setts.

It was just after 10 O’clock in the morning and an empty car (they were always called cars, never trams) was standing awaiting its next service at the Braids terminus, near where Comiston Road meets Braid Hills Road. The driver and conductor were on their break in the adjacent shelter (a replacement version of which is still there to this day). But the vehicle’s mechanical brakes had not been fully set and, imperceptibly slowly at first, the car began to creep away down Comiston Road towards the City.

The driver and conductor gave chase as soon as they noticed but were already too late and were unable to catch it as it began to speed up. The cable which moved the tramcars when in service was attached to by means of a mechanical “gripper” and whizzed anything attached to it along at a rather sedate 9½ mph (to which it was limited by Board of Trade regulations). The downhill runaway quickly passed this limiting speed and quickly caught up with the car running in service ahead of it. Fortunately there were no passengers aboard. The conductress saw the approaching danger, called a warning to the driver, and sensibly jumped for it. The inevitable collision happened and the two cars became entangled together. Luckily neither derailed. Less fortunately the driver – who had heroically stayed at his post – found that the gripper which connected his car to the traction cable had become jammed; the conjoined wreckage was thus firmly attached to the cable and was being hauled inextricably towards busy Morningside at a slightly less than terrifying nine and a half miles per hour. The danger was still real however as this was where Comiston Road changed from rural to dense urban in nature and the driver now had no way to stop at any approaching junctions, for any other tram cars ahead of him or to slow for any obstructions such as pedestrians, cyclists, horses, children crossing or workmen carrying sheets of plate glass across his path like they did in the movies then.

At Belhaven Terrace, just one mile from where the runaway had started, there was a set of points manned by a pointsman for switching the cars which had terminated at Morningside Station between tracks. The driver managed to call out his predicament to the pointsman as he sailed helplessly past. The pointsman’s hut had a telephone connection to the winding house at Tollcross which was powering the cable and after a brief call the winding engine was stopped. This brought the runaway – and half of the tramway network in the south and west of the city which shared that cable – safely to a halt. It took time to untangle the damaged cars and extricate the gripper from the cable but within an hour and a quarter from the start of the incident the network was back up and running again as if nothing had ever happened. Sadly no further details were reported in the papers

Runaways tramcars were fortunately very rare, but not unheard of. In April 1890 a horse-drawn vehicle had ran away down Montrose Terrace in the east of the city. One of the animals fell but its panicked companion dragged it and the tramcar along the ground a further 1,000ft before coming to rest outside the Abbey Church. “The passengers, who were greatly alarmed, were not, however, injured”. The same cannot be said about the poor fallen horse, as “on examination it was found… [to] not likely be of any more use.” Sadly it was probably a one way ticket to Cox’s Glueworks in Gorgie for that victim.

On September 30th 1909 a cable tramcar was involved in a potentially much more deadly accident at Waterloo Place. The car approached the terminus from the direction of Abbeyhill to pick up passengers from a large crowd intending to travel to Musselburgh for the races, but failed to stop in the right place. The driver brought it to a halt further on at the top of Leith Street – outside the General Post Office – and got out to inspect why it had failed to stop in the correct place. The curious and frustrated crowd naturally gravitated towards the vehicle to see what the problem was and if they could board it.

Perhaps the driver prodded around underneath too hard, or perhaps an onlooker knocked something they ought not to have, but in an instant the car suddenly lurched back in the direction of Waterloo Place – and the thronging crowd – seemingly attached to the return cable by forces unknown. The vehicle ploughed through the crowd resulting in six people (including three police men) being injured. Again it was lucky that cable haulage did not work at faster speeds. But all was not yet over; “just at that moment a motor car.. appeared on the scene“. The motor became entangled in the front of the tramcar and was dragged along the road by it for thirty yards. The driver jumped clear, narrowly avoiding behind run over by another tramcar coming up Waterloo Place from Regent Road. And then, as soon as it started, the excitement was over: the tramcar released its unexpected grip on the traction cable and the tangle of public and private transportation ground to a halt.

Of the four hospitalised, three had been in the car; the driver Archibald Carmichael and his passengers John McArthy and James Paton, through for the day from Gourock and Port Glasgow for the races. The fourth was a pedestrian, Mrs Mathieson of Gayfield Square. This wasn’t the result of black magic or enchantment however as a simple explanation was soon found. As the tramcar had approached Regent Road it had to switch between traction cables by releasing one cable with the rear gripper and grabbing the other with the front gripper (each tramcar had a front and rear gripper to attach itself to the cables.) At it had moved across the junction where Montrose Terrace branched off London Road the gripper had damaged the cable running in the slot between the rails. This had cut into some of the wire strands which had came started to unravel, preventing the gripper from releasing properly when the driver tried to stop on reached Waterloo Place. The fraying cable meantime had run around the pulley and come back towards the now stationary tramcar from the opposite direction and when the tangle of loose strands passed through the released gripper they quickly became tangled in it and enough unravelling wire built up to suddenly start the car in motion again in the return direction.

It would prove to be a bad day for the Edinburgh & District Tramways Co. and there had already been an accident earlier that morning when at 11:40AM a car overshot a set of points and collided with the pawl near the Abbey Church between Abbeyhill and Meadowbank. This was an emergency stop device mounted in the traction cable slot beneath the road surface which, if it was hit by a tramcar gripper, detached it from the traction cable and brought the tram to a very instant stop. The pawl was a violent but important measure which prevent the gripper from entering and becoming entangled in the large underground pulleys around which the cable ran. The shock of hitting the pawl in this case was severe enough to snap the car’s front axle. But these were different and more efficient times; the tramway depot at Shrubhill simply sent out a gang with a complete new bogey, which they swapped out at the side of the road in Abbeyhill before getting the car quickly back in service.

The return to service lasted just 15 minutes following the accident before the network had to be stopped again! A tramcar going from the Bridges to Leith Street had collided with another motor car and once again the pair became entangled and took some time to clear. This was the third and final accident of the day.

An altogether more tragic runaway accident took place on Saturday 17th October 1925 when an electric tramcar proceeding down a single line section on Ardmillan Terrace ran away and jumped the points at the foot of the hill, crashing into St. Martin’s Episcopal Church. Young Edward Stirling, aged just 8, had been out to buy a toy train for his brother who was in hospital. He was killed instantly when struck by the tram and was buried in Saughton Cemetery on Wednesday 21st. The tram driver, 3 passengers and another pedestrian were hospitalised. The Corporation sent a wreath and his funeral was attended by Councillor Mancor, Convenor of the Tramway Committee and R. S. Pilcher, the general manager of Corporation Tramways. The Lord and Lady Provost sent a letter of sympathy. A subsequent Board of Trade enquiry found no fault with the tramway equipment or tramcar and did not apportion blame to the driver, who had tried to use the resistance brake to slow the tram followed by the hand brake. There was some popular discontent with the Tramways, a correspondent by the pen name of A. Mother wrote to the ‘News to complain about the speed of the electric trams – “too fast for either safety or comfort“- and to protest about plans to increase their speed even further.

The next runaway took place in spectacular fashion on Saturday June 1st 1929. Miraculously, nobody was injured when car No. 349, waiting at the Liberton terminus with no crew but four elderly passengers aboard ran off down Liberton Brae. Anyone who has ever tried to cycle up (and down) that road can attest just how severe the gradient quickly gets! As the crew availed themselves of the facilities in the terminus shelter they didn’t notice their vehicle slowly begin to roll off down the hill; they had not applied the mechanical hand brake and the pressure had leaked out of the air brake hose causing it to slowly release.

The four passengers (aged 59, 71, 71 and 84) were subjected to a terrifying half mile ride down the Brae before No. 349 came to the corner at Alnwickhill Road, jumped the tracks, slid across the road and pavement and impaled itself on a pole for the overhead wires before caming to rest in the garden of 42 Liberton Brae.

Quite how only one passenger suffered only light bruising and all four had walked away from this defies logic. Indeed the two 71 year olds who had been aboard, a married couple from Leith Walk, simply waited for the next car and carried on home as if nothing else had happened. The house at number 42 was similarly unscathed, although the same could not be said for its garden wall, gate and neat privet hedging.

As a result of this incident protective barriers were installed on the corner outside numbers 42 to 46 where they remain to this day; the dents in their metalwork show they still serve their intended purpose well.

Six years later, in 1935, an accident took place only a few hundred metres down the Brae at Braefoot Terrace. The current collection pole of a tramcar proceeding uphill became dislodged from the current wire and the vehicle lost power and ground quickly to a halt. The trailing SMT bus was following too closely to stop in time and swerved off the road to avoid a collision. Instead it demolished the shopfronts of a James Baxter’s butchers, Adam Smith’s chemist and the branch of the Commercial Bank of Scotland. There were fortunately no major injuries; the butcher’s boy had a lucky escape as he had just been sent outside to clean the windows only to find a thirty-two seater bus baring down on him. He was able to jump clear in the nick of time.

On 25th October 1945, 64 year old Brownlow Grigor of Leith, a Corporation tram driver with 30 years experience was fined £3 by the Burgh Court for “having driven a tram culpably and recklessly“. Grigor was in charge of car No. 42 and had not been paying sufficient attention as he was trying to stow away his thermos flask. He had approached the sharp bend where cars travelling between Morningside and Marchmont turned off Church Hill and onto Greenside Gardens too fast and the laws of physics did the rest. His vehicle jumped the tracks and demolished a 24-foot section of the wall of – coincidentally – number 42 Greenhill Gardens. The embarrassment was all the more severe as this house was St. Bennets, the official residence and private chapel of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Edinburgh and St. Andrews! Grigor’s claim that it was defective rails that were at fault was not upheld.

Our last calamity took place in 1951 and it was the heroic figure of James Ferguson, a 53 year old worker from Portobello Power Station, who averted a real catastrophe. The busy tramcar he was on was hit by a lorry near Piershill which injured the driver and caused him to lose consciousness. Ferguson leapt to his feet, ran the length of the car, punched through the glass door to the driver’s compartment with his bare fist and let himself into the cab to disengage the power lever and apply the brakes. Ferguson was treated in hospital for cuts to his hands but was otherwise unscathed.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127340508@N05/26917130321/

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

Explore Threadinburgh by map:

These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.