'Two coaches that run daily from Hinckley to Leicester had set out together. The first having descended the hill leading to Leicester was obliged to stop to repair the harness. The other coachman saw the accident and seized the moment to give his antagonist the _go by_, flogging the horses into a gallop down the hill. The horses contrived to keep on their legs, but took fright at something on the road, and became so unmanageable in the hands of a drunken coachman, that in their sweep to avoid the object of their alarm, the driver could not recover them so as to clear the post of the turnpike gate at the bottom of the hill. The velocity was so great that the coach was split in two; three persons were dashed to pieces and instantly killed, two others survived but a few hours in the greatest agony; four were conveyed away for surgical aid with fractured limbs, and two in the dickey were thrown with that part of the coach to a considerable distance, and not much hurt as they fell on a hedge. The coachman fell a victim to his fury and madness. It is time the Magistrates put a stop to these outrageous proceedings that have existed too long in this part of the country.' (_St. James's Chronicle_, 15th July 1815). The frequency of upsets is suggested by a letter which appeared in the papers in 1785. The writer, who signs himself 'A Sufferer,' begs coach proprietors to direct their servants, when the coach has been overturned, 'not to drag the passengers out at the window, but to replace the coach on its wheels first, provided it can be accomplished with the strength they have with them.' After coaches began to carry the mails, accidents grew more numerous. We can trace many to the greater speed maintained, others to defective workmanship which resulted in broken axles or lost wheels, many to top-heaviness, and not a few to carelessness. The short stage drivers, on the whole, were the worst offenders. For sheer recklessness this would be hard to beat:-- 'During the dense fog on Wednesday last, as a Woolwich coach full of inside and outside passengers was driving at a furious rate, just after it had passed the Six Bells on its way to town, the coachman ran against a heavy country cart. The stage was upset, and those on the roof were pitched violently against an empty coal waggon; two of them fell on the shafts, one of whom had a shoulder badly dislocated; the other had his jawbone broken, with the loss of his front teeth. A Greenwich pensioner, with a wooden leg, had an arm broken, and some contusions on the head.' (_Bell's Life_, 15th December 1882). It would be easy to compile a list of accidents due to causes unforseen, each one, illustrating a different danger of the road. Here are a few:-- 'Tuesday afternoon, as one of the Brighton stages was leaving London at a rapid pace, the pole broke in Lambeth, and the coach was upset. Several passengers had limbs broken and others were injured.' (_Bell's Life_, 25th August 1822).