In the 19-teens through 19-twenties, the Transcript was full articles about gruesome car accidents. This isn't surprising, in that cars had little safety equipment, there were few defined "rules of the road," and the drivers were all new and inexperienced.
100 Years Ago
The October 15, 1925 Colorado Transcript featured a front page article titled "THREE SCHOOL OF MINES STUDENTS KILLED IN AUTOMOBILE CRASH NEAR GOLDEN - THREE OTHERS INJURED WHEN CAR RETURNING FROM FOOTBALL GAME HITS FORD BUG AT CEMETERY HILL CURVE."
Three students of the School of Mines were instantly killed and three others were injured last Friday night, when a heavy Willys-St. Claire roadster crashed into a Ford bug near the top of Cemetery hill, just south of the Golden city limits.
Both drivers were killed, as was the passenger in the roadster. The three passengers in the bug were injured, one having a fractured skull and one a fractured leg.
There was discussion as to who was responsible for the accident. Some witnesses were saying that the roadster was driving without headlights. A local repair shop testified that they had fixed the lights before the trip. The roadster driver "was known as an excellent driver, but a speedy one. His car was a powerful one and he was generally inclined to let it out." A traffic officer had been following the car and he estimated that it was going at least 50 MPH as it rounded the curve.
...the bug was literally torn to pieces. The rear wheels were torn from the frame and carried a distance of 200 feet from the point where the rash occurred.
I mentioned the lack of safety equipment on cars of this era. Most of them were open air. This was the case with the Model T Bug, and the article opined that this saved the three passengers, because they were thrown from the car upon impact.
