Are Old Cars Dangerous?;

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 255, 24 July 1936, Page 13

Are Old Cars Dangerous?;

Sir.—l should like.to reply to the letter signed "Old Junk.” Up to a point he “it is not the old junk which tears along at 60 m.p.h. and smashes into pedestrians. I agree thathe old “junk" does .not tear along at 60 m.p.h.. because it cannot, and that the latest high-powered car does most but not all-the damage. And why give 60 m p h. as the figure? Few pedestrians hit it that speed, and not all accidents are caused by speed. There is. however, one type ••junk” which is dangerous on the roads, and that is the old truck, usually converted from a private car, and which, aT a rule, has little in the way of brakes so that the driver has to rely a great deal on the reverse band of the epicyclic gear, with which the majority of this type of vehicle are fitted. Anyh w, as “Old Junk” says, probably not five out of one hundred accidents are caused by old cars, but by the man "’bo, drive the latest high-powered ear. and here. k the difference, “Old Junk —its chiefl the driver that is to blame, although he gets a lot of help from the car. Particularly if it is the product of the country which produced the aforementioned tri The equipping of engines with a.governor that will not permit speeds greater than 33 m.p.h. would increase danger, not lessen it. and this is why. There are often times when acceleration will get one out of a tight corner. For m stance. “Old Junk," suppose you are approaching a blind right hand bend in your “governed” tnotar-car at 15 to 20 tn.p.n. or less, you are nearing the bend on your own side of th? road and round comes a car driven at 35 m.p.h. by a man who has probably misjudged the seventy or the bend, and being a modern horror with “soft” springs and pudding-liRC tyres it cannot be held on to ,t 3 side and drifts across the road toward vou—in ninety-nine cases out of a nun dred. acceleration will get you out of that tight corner, but if you have a governed engine, it eannot give you the necessary power, except by changing to a lower gear, but the reaction time of the average driver is too slow to allow time tor a change of gear in that predicament. Check up. “Old Junk” and yon will find that a great number of. accidents happen under the above conditions, and you will see that both parties are . to blame in f he event of an accident —driver A for trying to corner too fast in a car nor suited for fast cornering, and driver B for not “iumning to it. which goes to prove that the most important test to which drivers should be. nut is their reaction time, and according to this “time.” they cnuld be “scaled to the tyne of vehicle they would be allowed to drive.—T TAMBOURINE Wellington. July 23.