GOVERNED SPEED

Evening Post, Issue 28, 1 August 1936, Page 28

GOVERNED SPEED

IDEA WITH WEAKNESS

HAMSTRINGING THE CAR

An American holds that the installation of governors to limit the speed of cars is not a cure-all for motor accidents. He says that if speed governors were imposed on all cars the car would go back to where it was twenty years ago. Manufacturers, in short, would simply produce a car inherently incapable of being driven fast. There could be no object in building power into the vehicle if that power not only would not be used, but could not be used. ..

He adds, however, that he considers there is a legitimate field for governors. One, he claims, would meet the case of drivers who are unaware of how fast they go. Many people summoned in court express surprise that they have exceeded speed limits. They drive subconsciously, he says, and this subconscious driving he characterises as "the greatest menace to safety we have on the road today." "The peculiar part of the situation," he says, "is that the more experienced the driver, and the longer he has been driving, the more likely he is to drive in a subconscious manner."

It might be possible, he suggests, to install a simple dash adjustment, by means of which a driver, on entering a speed-limit zone, could adjust a governor to prevent the vehicle exceeding the limit imposed. He. also suggests—but this is an old suggestion already discounted in the States— that an habitual offender could be prevented from ever driving fast by the Court ordering ; him to- protect

himself and the public by having his car. fitted, with avgovernor, meaning a governor outside.his control. A similar legal provision is Suggested to meet the case\pf minorsr X

Actually, this question of governors has been well thrashed out in Amerioa. It is a dead horse.' there. 'Motoring has gone, past the stage where it can be brought back to a matter of 20 or 30 miles an hour on the open road. The-main use to which governors are put in America is the economic operation, of heavy transport vehicles. By. :,the "• installation of, . governors drivers are prevented / from abusing lorries'and buses. This use, however, hasits limitations. A simple example would be our own city of Wellington. A lorry governed for economic operation 'between the ;city and the Hutt Valley, for 'instance,-'would be: useless so governed if its route were changed to, say,: the Makara Valley and back again. Power is required on the hills. A vehicle governed, to a 20. or 30 m.p.h. economy on the Hutt Road would be anything but economic 'crawling up steep grades on the low engine revolutions to which the engine would be confined. • The weakness of the internal combustion engine is that power is dependent on speed. It is not a question'of gear; whatever the gear, the engine'revolutions must be kept up, and even on low gear it is sometimes impossible to keep them high enough. A governor would have to be capable of adjustment to meet requirements, and once adjusted to give power oh steep hills the vehicle ceases to be' governed as regards power on the flat. These' are contraries not to be reconciled in the engine itself. With regard to installing governors by order of the Court, America has already displayed a consensus of opinion that such a handicap will promote rather than avoid accident. Power—the 'key to acceleration—is essential to quick manoeuvre. A driver, of course, can compel himself to keep within the limits of his machine; he can' accommodate himself to the handicap and drive accordingly. But there is more to it than that. There is the standpoint of those outside the car, the; drivers of other vehicles, not to speak of such things as cyclists and pedestrians. The liveliest thing on the road is the car, and it is the most controllable. Those without expect— they have every reason to expect— quick manoeuvre on the part of ■ the car. But how can they possibly guess that the 80 m.p.h. potentiality before them is incapable c<f acceleration even to as much as 30?- How should,they know that it is-a dead thing, and not the live one it seems. How should they know, that it! has been hamstrung. The inevitable happens—the unexpected—and it is the unexpected that causes accident. Everyone does the wrong thing. ■ People expect—they have every right to expect—quick manoeuvre on the part of the car.

Hamstringing cannot be the way to road safety. Nobody would think of hamstringing a horse, but a hamstrung car comes pretty near to the same thing. Interference with the car hardly commends itself as a rational method of achieving safety on the highway. One might as well argue that maiming a man by amputating one of his legs would make him safer than leaving him with two sound ones. He might be, or he might not; it would depend on circumstances. People, however, are not likely to sacrifice a leg for problematical benefit on certain occasions. Two sound legs are better than one. They give a choice; the maimed man has no choice; they give speed of manoeuvre, the maimed man has none. Neither has the driver of a maimed vehicle. Caught in a jam he is helpless; he can contribute nothing to prevent the impending collision; he cannot declare —he has no time -to declare—

his helpless state, and the inevitable happens. Yet he may be the only one who could have avoided the collision. The Court would say so, but it would be the Court itself that made it impossible. If a man is really so dangerous on the road that resort to maiming of his vehicle is considered, it would be better to resort to maiming of his licence to drive; far better to say he shall not drive than send him out, on the road with a disabled machine.