SKIDDED INTO DANGER.

The New York Times
April 1, 1914

Tester in Ohio Oil Fields Had Encounter With a "Nitro" Wagon.

Testing automobiles down around Findlay, Ohio, is not at all a safe proposition in many cases, for Findlay is located in the northern Ohio oil belt and men drive wagons loaded with nitro glycerine around that country regularly.  Sales manager George S. Waite of one of the motor companies there describes the experience of one of the testers as going up against "a real hard proposition."  Mr. Waite said last week:

"The feeling of one of our testers in a recent trip can hardly be described.  He was traveling fast over one of the roads around Findlay on one of the long, hard journeys we require every car to pass through before shipment.  This tester, pursuing his daily avocation of submitting a new car to the hardest sort of a test, discovered ahead of him and going the same direction one of the rather too familiar 'nitro' wagons.  Approaching the wagon he blew his horn.

"The driver of the wagon, instead of turning to the right to give passage room, turned to the left and the tester saw trouble in sight immediately, for the side of the roadway was a ditch so deep and with such steep banks that it was death to turn into it and again death to go ahead.  The tester applied his brakes violently, but the road was slippery and the car started a skid that threatened to land it up against the wagon with a thud that promised to result in trouble of the sort not regularly sought.  Visions of past misdeeds flew through the mind of the tester.  The car skidded right into the wagon but nothing happened but an exclamation of horror from the driver as he struck.  His return to the factory in the car, which was not damaged, was made at a pace that blocked the wagons on the road, for the incident for the time being had robbed him of his nerve."