Oddments

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 October 1947, Page 4

Oddments

Motorists have honked at meandering pedestrians for 40 years. Now a New Jersey highway is honking at meandering motorists. Between the highway’s lanes are slight elevations and depressions. Tyre suction sets up an audible buzzing when the car hits them to warn drivers that they are veering to the wrong side - * * =-.= * *

A scheme was launched near Liverpool the other day whereby learner drivers go on a tour of the borough in police patrol cars. This was part of a safety-first campaign. The pupils were given running commentaries and demonstrations on bad driving and road dangers. The weakness of the effort, of course, lies m the fact that where the average motorist is concerned, it is always the other fellow who does the wrong thing, and such teaching may only intensify the notion of a driver that he is impeccable and that it is everyone else that is making things unpleasant. Imagine such a tyro behind a loud-speaker and you will get a pretty good idea of what is running in his mind. Lots of us drive just like that. * * *

“Whatever criticisms may be levelled at today’s Civil Service,, most of its members can at least claim to work a great deal harder than did some of their predecessors in Government offices a century ago,” says the Manchester Guardian. “When Sir Algernon West became a clerk at the Admiralty in 1851 he made the distant acquaintance of a man who occasionally strolled into the office for a few minutes during the afternoon, generally in evening dress. When he asked Frederick Locker (who had longer experience in the office, and incidentally, always wore , kid gloves when on duty in order to protect his hands from ink-stains) who this lordly visitor might be, he was informed, to his intense astonishment, that he was the chief clerk. As to what his duties were even supposed 'to.be, Locker could furnish no information, having seen him

perform any. —-The Seeker