Duty Of Every Driver To Ensure The Safety Of His Brakes

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 15 June 1935, Page 14

Duty Of Every Driver To Ensure The Safety Of His Brakes

IT is not necessary to travel either very fast or very fai in order to appreciate a good braking system. Factors such as the carelessness of many road users, the vast number of signs’ and abrupt changes in road surfaces create emergencies which may occur at almost any speed down to a crawl. Consequently no driver, however careful, can afford to neglect the occasional adjustment which his brakes require. Far too nine attention has been concentrated upon the distances in whie l a car can be stopped, as distinct from the way in which it stops. On-a dry road the tyre adhesion available is so great as to cloak the effects of maladjustment or wear, but on a greasy surface,, the way in which the brakes operate becomes of paramount importance.

When the pedal is depressed the brake shoes should take over their task rapidly, yet smoothly; any suggestion ( oiL grabbing is .apt to lock a -wheel or •wheels. A tyre which is sliding can-J not .produce so effective a braking .action as one which is rolling and, furthermore, loses directional control. It is for this reason that locking the rear | wheels on a slippery surface results in a tail swing which is apt to develop: into a skid.

Similar considerations show the importance of a proper distribution of the braking forces over the four wheels. In course of time wear and tear may result in one of the brake drums taking much more than its fair share of the work, with the result that the wheel concerned will very readily become locked in the course of emergency braking on. grease. Most big . garages arc equipped with special brake-testing apparatus, by means of which .proper adjustments can mpidly be carried out. Given good brakes, the results actu-

ally obtainable will depend to a marked extent upon the efficiency of the ■driver. He must school himself to use the pedal with discretion on n slippery road, even if an emergency calls for as quick a stop as possible. Suddenly to apply a heavy pressure on the pedal will probably result in the car sliding through a much greater distance than that in which it could have been stopped by more gentle treatment. Secondly, the driver must always be alert in order to reduce, so far as is ■humanly possible, the reaction time which elapses between noting an emergency and applying the brakes. Lengthy experience and theoretical considerations go to show that onlj very rarely is it possible to stop a car i in less than 30ft from 30 m.p.h. Brakes capable of giving this result show an efficiency of 100 per cent. I Modern brakes are very good, but ■ they cannot perform mii-aeles. Properly adjusted and used they do, however, provide the best possible safeguard ' against accidents.