STOP!

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 13 May 1925, Page 9

STOP !

AND HE DID

A NEW CHUM AT THE "WHEEL

The whole idea of the little plan was that it should act as a -tost of nerve, as really no one could complain when it developed into a trial of nerves. It happened on the. outskirts of Hawera yesterday .afternoon. The car was big, powerful and heavy; the driver was new to the game, but bent on securing his “ticket” the inspector was there to try out the driver; and the garage man had just to sit back and study the moves of his pupil. “Speed her -up a hit,” ordered the examining officer, and the little indicator went from 20 to 25, to. 30. “Now, when I call “stop !” you are to imagine that a child has just run out in the road right in front of you.” The tar-sealed surface, newly wetted by the rain, glistened in the light that struck down between two banks of clouds. His fingers gripping the wheeL anew, the driver’s foot felt for the brake and poised itself in readiness.

“Stop!” Before a heave worthy of an All Black scrum when the ball goes in, the brakes went on—hard. Did the car respond?

Did it what? That car rose superior, to its very advertisements. For the first time in the history of machinery iron and steel showed the power of reasoning. It was apparent that the driver wished to stop.* From the manner in which he stood on the brake it seemed that he wished to stop fairly soon. What more likely, then, than that he wanted to go back home. There were ail sorts of reasons why he might wish to return; but is was not for the car to speculate on those. The place of the perfectly up-to-date motor-car is sot to reason why; for it there’s but to do and be sold second-hand.

So this car., reading its driver’s mind in a flash, stopped, lurched across the greasy tar-sealed roadway, lurched again, and stood obediently still —facing the way it, bad come. All this before one could have said Henry Ford or Walter P. Chrysler, and in its own length.

The driver got his ticket all right; hut before, that inspector starts any. more imaginary children running across greasy roads lie (s going to see a man about a will.