HOME GARAGES.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18544, 20 November 1925, Page 5

HOME GARAGES.

HOW THEY ARE NEGLECTED. There is no question about the popularity of motor-cars. There are over 300,000 of them in Australia and New Zealand. Practieallv every family owning a motorcar keep it in their home garage. When they buy a car they get an instruction j book, telling them how to operate and care for it. [ But when the average motorist builds j a home garage he has no guide about its care, no instruction book to tell him what he should keep in this home garage. And so it has come about that most home garages are little more than covered parking places for the motorears they contain. But this very unfortunate condition is expensive for the motorist and bad for the motor-car. Running a Kitchen. Suppose a housewife were to run her kitchen on the same basis that her husband runs his home garage. She would buy a stove and then from meal to meal have to go to the butcher, grocer, or the greengrocer for the food for that one meal. That is the way supplies are bought for the motor-car, from trip to trip. tio into the average living room and you will find tables, chairs, rugs on the floor, reading lamp handy, magazines and books, probably some smoking materials, maybe a fireplace with wood ready to be used. Go into the dining-room—the diningroom table, the chairs, the table covering, silver, dishes, glassware, all ready to be used. In the wood-shed, the coal-bin, the wood pile, the tools for the garden, a hose—all ready for use. All over the house is the equipment and the supplies not for a single day but for a whole year; a lifetime, perhaps. Back to Oarage. Kow let's go back and look in the garage again. There is a. car standing on the floor; a couple of worn-out tyres Ihrown against, the side of the wall; perhaps a few empty cans that formerly contained oil; maybe there is a workbench, but generally there isn't; possibly there are a few .tools, but generally there are not. . How much better it would be if this garage contained a few supplies that the average motorist would need, not for a single trip, but for a season—a few of the tools that he would use, not once, but perhaps during his lifetime. j Just for example,' here's a list of things that are missing from the average home garage, which ought to be available for simple adjustments or repairs:—Screw-drivers, spanners, a iittle home vulcanising outfit, non-skid chains, extra links, an extra tube-or two, spare tyre, lamp bulbs, sparkplugs, a supply o* lubricating oil, soap for removing grease, stiff brushes for washing the wheels, sponges, chamois. These are just a few of the essential supplies that go to make a home garage something more than a mere storehouse for a. motor-car. The average motorist will find them useful. There are many more things that he may need, not included" in this list. DRIVERS AND ACCIDENTS. BIG SAFETY PERCENTAGE. To-day in Great Britain there are 1,-300,000 persons licensed to drive motor vehicles, and the number has lately been increasing at the rate of 2500 a week, or about 10,000 every month. Therefore, there- are at least 60,000 drivers 'of six months' or less experience. Moreover, there are now on the roads on anv given, day probablv about 1,200,000 out of the 1,500,000 motor vehicles, allowing for the absence of a large number not being used or under repair. Lord Montagu of Beaulie.u, in considering the question of accidents, in an article in the "Sunday Times," says: "Supposing, for the sake of argument, there are 100 accidents a day. a figure in excess of the total, the odds would be 12,000 to 1 against any individual car n\eeting with trouble, a fairly high percentage in favour of safety." And when we come to serious accident fatalities, if there are ten deaths a day arising out of motor-car accidents, the odds, so far as the driver is concerned against a fatality are 1:20,VQ0 to I. So the riskis remote. Jn fact, to put it shortly, we must try to preserve a seme of proportion. No douHt, when the number of motor-cars increases still further the inevitable tendency will be towards a greater number of accidents, though the proportion of accidents per mile driven or per car on the road should decrease as the drivers who have become motorists during the last three years gain more experience, and d'splay more instinctive road sense."