Auto Gossip

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30477, 26 June 1964, Page 9

Auto Gossip

A.J.P.

by

it must be admitted that this is far too often true. “I am perfecting the art of mouthing swear words at the drivers.”

Penultimately

The plaint of assault by cycle on my car’s flanks brought this from the writer: “This poor woman was probably in the process of taking her bike from the parking lot and was pushed or, it being a frosty morning, the vehicle slipped from her grasp and thereby on to your automobile. Whereupon you gave vent to your wrath and the poor female was so frightened, she thought only of getting away.” . . . And Finally

Alas, my friend, not so. The scene of the crime was Gloucester street, not a parking

lot, the time 5.45 p.m., not morning. I was in the vehicle preparing to fasten seat belts and start the motor when the cycle thudded off the panelwork. Far from giving vent to wrath I was sitting slightly open-mouthed when the “poor woman” (aged about 20) retrieved her steel steed, replaced It against the parking meter, and made off. Not a word of wrath, not a fierce gesture sullied the smoggy evening air. And incidentally, it is an offence to use a parking meter as a cycle stand. Cyclists versus drivers? There are faults on both sides, but rather more, I think, on the side of the cyclists. Quote Of The Week “I have seen half-a-dozen arms completely ruined after crashes where people were driving with elbows sticking out”—A spokesman for the Road Injuries Research Group at Birmingham Accident Hospital on the dangers of driving with an elbow out the window.