SHE SAYS...

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33004, 25 August 1972, Page 9

SHE SAYS...

Are you familiar with how to work all the various fittings on the family car? I’m sure a lot of women, are not, but it is getting more important to get the “cockpit drill” right, if only because the drill itself seems to be getting more complicated all the time. I don’t believe there are many women about who do not know how to work the heater cr the windscreen washers, although I have heard the stories. It is the crop of theft-protection gadgets on present and recent models that really seems to cause problems.

It started years ago with a car which had a special parking light switch. It turned off the inside set of parking lights, and also broke the connections to the starting motor. Lots of women who had not read the new car’s handbook (or whose husbands had not given it to them to read) wondered why the car’s starter would not work. Some even called mechanics from the nearest telephone box.

Two years ago, a friend lent his car to a visitor, and my husband and I were out driving when we saw our friend’s car in a garage, surrounded by worried-looking people. To cut a long story short, we stopped and found they had turned off the antithief ignition cut-out switch by mistake, and then wondered why the car would not go. I heard of a woman in difficulties with the new family car the other day: she just could not get it to start.

It turned out that the car was the family’s first automatic gearbox one—and they had not told her it had to be put in neutral before the starter would work. Mufflers, too Car mufflers are to be included in the items checked annually in British cars more than three years old. The requirement will be part of moves against noisy vehicles.

This isn’t new, although it puzzled her. What is new is an arrangement on some new models which means you cannot take out the ignition key until the gearlever is in reverse, so the car is locked in gear. Another raises the roof with a buzzer if you do not _ take the key out (which locks the steering) before you open the door. And on lots of cars with locking steering, getting the key in and out can be a real fiddle, unless you have read the handbook and know the trick about giving the wheel a twiddle to take the strain off the lock.

Cars are just like any other piece of household machinery — you must read the instructions before you use them.