RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30109, 18 April 1963, Page 15

RANDOM REMINDER

THE OPEN ROAD

The average motorist is persistently harassed by unhappy thoughts about costs. He is all too well aware of what an expensive toy he has; as soon as he turns on his ignition key, he can see the cash register totting it all up—petrol and oil, repairs, licence fees, depreciation, the lot. So motoring becomes a trial by ordeal, the motorist wincing every time another mile is recorded on hia dash-board, and reflecting ruefully that with every application of the brakes, another threepence worth of rubber has gone from the tyres. But we know one man for whom motoring has opened great new vistas of enjoyment. He is a nervous, nondescript sort of fellow, holding a humble position in an ordinary sort of firm—a man without manna, or personality, prestige or

popularity. His days were dull. Until he bought his car. The choice he made has changed his life. He acquired a large English car, second-hand. It is black, and long. It has a radio mast. And it looks very much indeed like the vehicle Inspector Lockhart had to dash about in “No Hiding Place.” It is identical, too, with some of the cars used by the New Zealand Police Force. The first hint of the power that was to be his came with the realisation that cars in front of him kept slowing up. When the truth dawned on him, he was a made man. He has developed the habit of rushing up behind other cars on the more open stretches of road, and, for the benefit of the anxious man in front watching through the rear vision mirror, making obvious

checks on the speedometer. Sometimes ho ostentatiously takes pencil and puts it to pad. It is wonderful the respect he is shown, the road courtesy extended his way. He has developed, from practice before his bedroom mirror, a superbly disapproving gio wer with which he shrivels drivers approaching him at too high a speed from the opposite direction. He sometimes spends a pleasant hour or two parked beside a cross-roads in the country. And he has joined a yachting club, sa that he can wear a fine, peaked cap. He is hoping to have a siren by Christmas. He stands straighter now, and at his office, he has been promoted. He has been sent out on the road, travelling for his firm; he provides his own transport, and he is a happy, happy man.