Motoring

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVI, Issue 86, 27 March 1926, Page 13

Motoring

SPOTTING SPEED. A FREE STATE COMEDY. The southern Irish are justly famous for their unconscious humour, and the dramatis persona lived up to their reputation recehtlv during the hearing of a “dangerous driving” case in County Cork (states the “Autocar. Tho chief humorist was a sergeant of police, who, while looking out of tho front window of the police barracks, observed the approach of a motor-car. Apparently the sergeant considered that the vehicle was being driven rather too fast, so he stepped briskly from the window to the front door, a distance of nine feet, with the intention of stopping the delinquent. With that thoroughness for which the police force is so justly celebrated, he appears to have made not only a men, tai but a written, note of the number of seconds occupied by him in this not very lengthy journey. By the time he reached the door the defendant had disappeared, having travelled 880 feet from the point at which he had first been descried. The, representative of law and order, after embarking upon some rather abstruse calculations, based on the relation oJ 880 feet to the number of seconds required by a police sergeant to cover nine feet, came to the conclusion that* the defendant must have been travelling at 75 m.p.h.—this through one of the principal streets of Lismore. A superintendent of’police, whose car had been passed by the defendant almost in front of the barracks, assumed a cautious attitude in the witness box. He was not, he said, ?n a position to estimate the precise speed at which this car was travelling, bat the defendant was certainly doing 30 m.p.h. Under cross-examination, he admitted that it would have been somewhat difficult for him to take, as he did take, the defendant’s number if the speed had been as calculated by the sergeant. Questioned to his opinion of the possibility of a three-year-old car of the pre-historic make achieving the nimbleness alleged by his subordinate, tho superintedent remarked that the vehicle was travelling downhill. The defendant, in the box, aSsertfd that his speed at the time of tho occurrence was 12 m.p.h., and he contended that his maximum possible epeed with the car in question, a three-year-old “hack,” was 15 m.p.h. 'the newspaper report of the case does not detail the defendant’s explanation of the fact that by his own admission on tho day in question he had covered 20 miles in an hour. The Magistrate, faced with the distressing task of sifting the facts, gave it as his opinion that the superintendent’s estimate of 30 m.p.h. was the nearest, and dismissed the case. * * * ♦ PERIL !N TOO SUDDEN DRIVING. As the percentage of cars with four wheel brakes increases the proportion of accidents due to skidding will probably decrease. But the manager of a big English insurance company says that the usual early winter crop of such acicdents shows no signs of abating. A few general rules concerning skids should always be remembered. The most important is the need for always exercising extra care when driving on greasy roads. This should be emphasised more particularly rtt this period of tho year During the dry weather one gets in the habit of a certain average speed and a certain “traffic pace” between one’s own car and the vehicle immediately in front When road surfaces become bad. it is necessary to make a careful extra allowance i'o.r the changed conditions. It if because novices do not make such allowances that so many of them get involved in skidding accidents. ■Sb long as you can avoid it, neither brake or accelerate suddenly nor taiu. a sudden swerve nor steer round a corner quickly. To achieve this it is necessary to look ahead,a little further ’bun usual. If circumstances should still make sudden brake application essential, always remember that it is safer to leave the clutch in. Do not de-clutcft until the last moment—say, about 5 m.p.h. Novices have often an instinctive desire to put both feet down hard—but it is a wrong instinct. Finally, keep an eye on the tread of your tyres. Even the design of the tire surface make a big difference Any badly worn tread will always mean added danger, so you should put such tyres by for their final service in summer. # # $ ♦ SIGNALLING DEVICES. Of late there ha.s been a marked increase in the number of cays equipped with signalling devices, or traffic indicators. as these fittings are variously called (states the “Autocar”). This is doubtless in part due to the increasing popularity of covered cars and the growing traffic congestion, and partly to the improved nature of many of the latest of these warning signals. In cold or wet weather much of the comfort of an all-enclosed car is lost if the driver has to have the off-side window open in order that he may give hand signals, and yet. unless thia is done, he has the continual anxiety of expecting fallowing traffic to run into him should he be called upon to stop suddenly, or should he wish to make a turn. With a reliable signalling device fitted, however, this anxiety is completely banished, while the driver is not forced to get his right arm and shoulder wet or cold by repeatedly thrusting them out into the open, nor are the passengers worried by draughts. &WWWWWWWWW® NEW SALES RECORD FOR DODGE BROTHERS. JANUARY SALES 67.4 PER CENT ABOVE LAST YEAR. The month just closed was the biggest January in the history of Dodge Brothers, Inc., and Graham Brothers, according to official figures just given out at the offices in Detroit. Actual retail deliveries of 14,943 cars and trucks was the record reached in the four weeks ending January 30. This was an increase over the same period ol January, 1925, the greatest previous January -for Dodge Brothers of 6018 cars or a gain of 67.4 per cent. The gain over January, 1923, the banner year prior to 1925 for the automotive industry was even greater. MAGNUS MOTORS, LIMITED, DODGE BROTHERS DEALERS. Hastings and Wellington.*