A watercolour of the 'Cockermouth Post Coach' having hit an obstruction in the road with devastating consequences. A woman with her head out of the window, tries to steady herself. A group on top of the carriage desperately cling onto the top as the carriage tips to the side. The horses at the front are panicking. Runaway horses and toppling coaches were common hazards for eighteenth-century travellers. Mail coaches were considered a step up from the common stagecoach, and people paid a higher fare to travel in them. But there was concern about the frequency of accidents, which were blamed on the number of ‘outside’ passengers who sat on the box at the back.