SAVING ON PETROL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 5 December 1925, Page 14

SAVING ON PETROL.

EFFECT OF GOOD GOADS

COST OF VAR YING SUB FACIES

America sti’ll has a big mileage ol bad roads, and ithe following figures of wihat isuch roads mean in increased petrol consumption have their moral for New iZieialand motorists (outside Taranaki!) They are taken from the American Motorist: —‘‘According to experiments conducted recently by the Kentucky Highway Department, the unimproved road as compared with the improved road imposes -a tax of two and one-half cents a pile on drivers of Fold cars. By taking the average of over 60 Ford oars, they have found that it- costs 50 per cent, more to drive an automobile on poor roads than it does on good roads. The exact figures were 6.72 per cent a mile for improved roads. These amounts include the cost of gasoline, oil, and grease, tyres and repairs, but not storage or depreciation, on unimproved roads; so that fuel consumption was 35 a mile against 1.7 cents on improved roads; and fuel consumption was 35 per cent, higher on poor than on good roads. “Anybody who lias tried to push or pull a motor-car on a sandy or muddy road appreciates well why it costs so much more to drive a car on unimproved roads. Ten times as much forex? is required to pull a car on a muddy or rough road as on a smooth paved road. It is around 400 pounds for a Ford car in the former case against only about 35 pounds in the latter. “How much better for the American motorist to contribute towards good roads than to spend his money, a thing which so far he has .been forced to do too much, as a tax on the poor roads ho has had toi travel. Such an investment yields iai big income in the form of increased pleasure and decreased cost of driving a motor-car, not to mention the time that it saves. “If it is assumed that bad roads in America, of which we sitill -hare many, are adding one cent a mile to the cost of motoring, .and that the average car is driven 5000 miles in a year, our annual poor roads tax is 50.00 dollars a year » ear. For the 15,000,000 motor cars in service this -totals 750,000,000 dollars, 25 par cent more than all the money appropriated by Congress for building roads since the passage of the Federal Aid R.oad Act in 1916. Even at 35.000 dollars a mile, this is enough to build every year—six highways clear across this great country of ours. But we do not need highways in every direction from our cities and towns. A saving of even one-half a cent, per motor-car mile would construct 10,000 miles of brick, concrete, or asphalt roads every year. How much this would help in improving communioa.tion—in making the -motor-car more useful!”