PER HOUR OR PER SECOND

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 75, 21 December 1928, Page 17

PER HOUR OR PER SECOND

SPEED IN RELATION TO DISTANCE A GOOD SUGGESTION A Canadian magistrate recently put forward a suggestion to motorists which if generally followed, should bring about a safer.condition of affairs on the roads. Many new drivers are deficient in their judgment of speed and time in relation to distance. The magistrate,really elaborates this point when he advises drivers to cease to think in terms of miles and hours, and to think in terms of feet and seconds. Enlarging upon this, he continues :— “If an object suddenly crosses your path 50ft. ahead from where you are sitting at the wheel, and you are travelling at 30 miles per hour, you have only one second in which to act to avoid an accident, and only half a second if the object is only 25ft. away. “A motor-car travelling 15 miles an hour is covering 22ft. per second: nt 20 miles per hour it is. covering 29ft per second; at 25 miles, 36ft.; at 30 miles, 44ft.; at 35 miles, 51ft.; at 40 miles, 58ft.; at 45 miles, 66ft. What should, therefore, be constantly in the motorist’s thoughts is the time limit which to act in face of an. emergency, should an emergency arise.” There are, of course, experienced drivers who will be able to say they have found all this out for themselves. On the. other hand, there must be many ■who have never, given a thought to the number of feet they are travelling in a second, and what,; therefore, is the fractional period of time they have in which to act in face of an emergency. A driver whose perception is thus trained interms of feet and seconds is much more likely to have his car in constant control, and must be quicker to judge the speed and possible action of some more irresponsible driver. In other, words, it is not space and time behind, but space and time immediately ahead that he may have to reckon with. « Judgment in driving should always be concerned in anticipating the unexpected. Thinking in terms of feet and seconds is a sound policy, and the figures shown in this article should impress upon all drivers the need for concentration upon the job in hand, for. particularly in these days of crowded roads, driving does really call for careful calculation all the time. SOME PARKING TIPS THE ART OF MANOEUVRING There are many motorists who, although quite good drivers, are not very good at manoeuvring their cars into crowded, parking places. Often a driver is hard pressed to know exactly what is the best way to maneouyre his car into position when parking it where there is just space left for one in a row of cars parked at an angle to the kerb. More frequently he is at a loss to know how to drive into a space left between two rows parked parallel to the kerb.

The illustrations show clearly how best to enter spaces of the type mentioned above. In the first one, drivers will see that it is best to approach the parking space running in the direction in which the cars face until you are just past the opening and then back your car into the space available. If you approach it the other way and attempt to back in you will quite possibly collide with and damage the next car unless you are particularly careful. It can be done but would involve reversing through an arc forming nearly three parts of a circle, which would cause unnecessary obstruction to other traffic passing by. Where cars are parked parallel with the kerb and- you wish to get into a space, do not go in ose forward (figure 2) but drive just past the space first of all. running close to the next car. Then reverse first on one lock and then on the other (figure 3) : this will bring the tail of the ear sharply round and just in front of the other vehicle in a suitable position.

Private advice by cable has heen received that; Mr. Alex Finlay, of Melbourne, lias been successful in establishing a new 12 hours’ world’s road record for all classes of motor-cycles by covering a distance of 583.398 miles. He also broke the world’s 24 hours’ road record for machines undehr 5t ”) c.c. by covering 1062 miles in 22$ hours.