MOTORING AND MOMUS

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 12, 15 January 1929, Page 6

MOTORING AND MOMUS

DANGEROUS FATIGUE AT THE WHEEL.

(To the Editor.)

I/ost-picnfe weariness—es}>ecially aftrr sea baffting—often lasts for twenty-fnir hour;, son letimes it commences after a meal, an-1 ain?iost immediately after a liathe <t a swim. A magistrate has observed that most motor accidents happen "in a flash"' and most ofi»u wb«in the driver is drowsy, tired or has his att rntion diverted from his driving. 1 do not kn< »w the working hours of the driver of a service car, but the sailor's four-hour watch mi well be adopted for these motor drivers A "weary or sleepy driver is a danger. The prijvate motorist did not attend to hj« owai safety until the anti-alcoholic interference of th » police made alcoholic sleepiness an offence in a driver if an accident occurred or if otherwise detected. Trains and trams are run upon a i fixed course, and their drivers t-annot easily r on off it, and if a sleepy engine driver on the rfcilway is a danger, then the man who can i/un his ear all over the road is more than • Joubly go. In an ideal set of circumstances a lired or sleepy man should never drive a carlie should be alive and alert to meet the thr»*t of accident which happens "in a flash."' for tha slowest progress will not permit him to be les* alert, as the action of another driver mav at any moment tax his quickness and respons* to stimulus. Co-ordination of afferent an<| efferent nerves is modified by Momus to a point where day dreaming supplants alertness when the repletion of the picnic and the sorinolent effect of sun and sea and sandwiches tare felt by the home-driving motorist.