ADVICE TO DRIVERS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 10, 12 January 1929, Page 25

ADVICE TO DRIVERS

Extreme braking power and the lavish way it is customarily used inflicts strain and discomfort on passengers. You know exactly -when the "deceleration" is coming, but they probably do not. When you let in the clutch suddenly, you have notice to stiffen your neck muscles,: but, you, catch them unprepared. " ■.■■■ . . , '. You know (or hope you do) just how closely you can shave other cars,, but there are lots of -'people, who don't, see much . difference between "being killed and scared to death," so avoid those hair-raising "cut-ins" which leave your passengers with incipient neurasthenia. ■ • The majority of drivers keep a steady foot on the throttle, opening it gradually to increase speed gently 1 when required and to maintain it on increasing gradients, thus maintaining a pace free from uncalled-for fluctuations, but some drivers depress the accelerator until the car accelerates beyond the desired average speed and then "let up and allow the car to float along until it slows down too much, when .they open the thvottlo wide again and: so. on indefinitely. ' Their driving is a succession of "fits and starts." Presumably • they like to "feel her pick up," and they are free to enjoy the sensation of quick response, but they ought to realise that this "steady-by-jerks" habit of driving wastes fuel. There is a big difference in the distance a, steady driver and an "accelera-tor-pumper" can go on a gallon of petrol. When a car is accelerated faster than it is to be continuously driven and the throttle is then closed the p

cngino begins to. hold back and reduce speed, the effect being the same as applying the brakes. • No' one would think of accelerating and then jamming on the brakes, but this uneven way of driving differs 1 from it in degree only. . Every time the accelerator hits the floor mat an extra squirt of petrol comes into the carburettor to strengthen the mixture for acceleration purposes, with the result that the ear is driven on a wasfefully over-rich mixture.