ICE ON WINDSCREEN

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 170, 15 April 1939, Page 12

ICE ON WINDSCREEN

A Good Friday Experience “It should have been called Cool Friday instead of Good Friday,” said a Wellington traffic officer who has just returned from a holiday, “because it was the first time in my experience that ice had formed on my windscreen. That was late ou Good Friday night while crossing the mountains between Taupo a'nd Napier, near Tarawera. It seemed hardly credible, for the day had been bright and sunny, and wo had bathed in cold water at Rotorua that morning. Yet there it was. It was with some difficulty that we were able to get along, for the screen-wiper, which: we thought might prevent the formation of ice, simply skidded over a thin laver of it, leaving the sight obscure, but, with occasional rubbernecking out of tiie side window, we managed to proceed for a time. We tried engine oil on the ice at first, and then I had to prize it off with a screwdriver.

“Others who crossed the ranges that night had the same experience,” said the officer. "One Wellington business man said that ice formed inside as well as out on his screen. The air ne exhaled against rhe windscreen congealed and froze there. A man who was a bit up against it with a leaky radiator did not mind so much, as the water froze as it emerged from the leak ami blocked up the hole. He arrived at the bottom of the hill with icicles hanging on his radiator.”