From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Letter describing a severe car accident near Amiens, detailing injuries, vehicle damage, and speculating on steering issues as the cause.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 181\M10\ img029 | |
| Date | 24th March 1928 | |
| Leightondene, Willingdon Road, Eastbourne. 24.III.28. My dear PN.{Mr Northey}, I expect you will have heard by now of the almighty smash we had near Amiens. I started to write to you there but it never got further as there was much to do and I felt pretty rotten. Briggs was driving (thank the Lord) and was frequently testing the surface. We were going straight about 200 yards after a very slight curve on the centre of a tarred raincovered road at about 50 m.p.h. Car skidded just as it had done when she took charge with me after I left you that day - 3 big yaws and I thought all was well when the final yaw developed. We went off on the grass and hit a tree a foot behind my left shoulder. Poor Butler was very badly hurt - fractured skull and thigh - but the latest reports yesterday (i.e. 40 hours after the smash) were good. We were fortunate in getting assistance without delay and got him into a clinic at Amiens - a very efficient place I think. The car is in many pieces. The back axle and torque tube was 20 yards away from the engine which was still running, and God knows what happened to the back of the car - nothing but splinters. I found myself gently reposing on the ground at the side of the car with my feet still on the floorboard and a minor bruise or two is all I got, but I'm taking a day or two in bed and tons of bromide. There's a certain aftershock in these things which is pretty nasty. Briggs quite unhurt - but a good deal shocked. It is curious that I should have written to you on the very morning of the accident from Paris about my views on the car's steering. This second skid with its horrible ending confirms what I said to you. The steering hunted again. There was no possibility of control - and my view is that the demultiplied steering coupled with all that springiness is literally deadly in emergency. There is no selectivity at all for she hunts from spring position to spring position. In both these skids there was no apparent rhyme or reason for their starting and thats a curious fact. In my case I cannot see that I was doing anything silly or unusual. In Briggs's case the same applies. The speed wasn't excessive - in each case the car was travelling dead straight on the crown of the road and she just skidded for | ||