MOTORING WORLD

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 283, 27 October 1934, Page 5

MOTORING WORLD

NOTES. Lord Trenchard recently issued a warning that it is an oSence for motorists in England to throw money to children—and dangerous. A monument was unv'eiled recently to Gottlieb Daimler, the motor-car pioneer, at Schrondorf, Wurtemburg, where he was born 100 years ago. Last year’s registration figures for Hungary show that there were 10,586 motor-cycles in use in that country, as compared with 8000 private cars. A lioiton (England) pedal cyclist was fined 10s recently lor having .a reflector one inch in diameter instead of the regulation one-and-a-quarter inches. Under the new Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Bill to be presented to the Northern Ireland Parliament, powers are given to the police to stop vehicles and test them themselves.

One of the big petrol compan.es in England, it is said, loses £IO,OOO a month owing to evaporation. The Automobile Association discloses that there is a striking deficiency in footpath accommodation besido important British main roads. An exhaust-operated syren can now he obtained in England with an arrangement of pipes to give a chord of six notes. This is a pleasant warning signal audible at a great distance. CARS’ TURNING CIRCLES.. The turning circles of a car depend upon the angle through which the front wheels can be deflected. The angle, however, is generally limited by stops. These are sometimes adjustable and are provided to prevent the smiO axles from moving beyond a certain limit. It is frequently found that these are not identical for each side, which accounts for the different turning circles to the right and left. The drag link is sometimes found to obstruct the movements of the wheels in one direction but not in the other. It is necessary to adjust the stops so that the tyres" do not rub against the chassis or any other part of the car. NEW CANADIAN HIGHWAY. A 4000-mile stretch of perfect road, said to be the greatest motoring highway in the world, is now nearing completion in Canada. First urged by the Canadian Automobile Association a few years ago, the work of construction was eventually undertaken by the Government, and the road is now a reality, running the entire breadth of Canada from the Atlantic coast to'the Pacific. This vast highway, which has kept thousands of men in employment for years, will offer to all who patronise it an unrivalled variety _ of scenery under ideal travelling conditions. Great rivers will be crossed, vast stretches of open prairie where the gradient of the road hardly varies will be traversed, and in the final stages of the journey from east to west across the continent motorists will pass through some of the grandest mountain scenery in the world.

The road runs from Halifax in Nova Scotia to Vancourver. As tourists constitute one of Canada’s important

sources of revenue, the Dominion has been very diligent in the development of her highways. Her surfaced roads total about 100,000 miles, while unsurfaced roads aggregate some 400,000 miles. These figures include roads outside cities, towns, and villages. The expenditure in Canada on road construcScotia to Vancouver. As tourists connecting roads amounts to approximately £13,000,000 a year, while maintenance accounts for another £4,000,000. Canada has now an average of one motor vehicle to every 84 persons. WORLD PRODUCTION. A study of the world production and exports of motor vehicles, compiled by the United States Department of Commerce, reveals last year’s tremendous activity in the motor industry all over the world. Comparisons between 1932 and 1933 show a marked increase in production for 1933 in every country. The world production of passenger cars, trucks and buses during 1933 totalled 2,715,575 units, compared with 1,976,963 units in 1932. Passenger cars accounted for 2,187,710 units in 1933.

No other country can compare with the United States for production totals, for in 1933 she produced 1,959,945 units, compared with 1,370,678 units in 1932. The nearest to this enormous figure is the United Kingdom with 280,526 units in 1933, compared with 244,434 units in 1932. For the rest, Franco increased to 191,929 from 170,955 units; Germany to 105.832 from 50,417; Canada to 65,924 from 60,816; Soviet Russia to 49,743 from 26,849; and Italy to 42,000 from 29,100. Consideration must, however, be given when comparing these production figures, to the total areas and road facilities of the various countries.

When it comes to exports the figures are not so divergent, but the U.S.A. is still well in the load —the total foreign sales of U.S.A. motor vehicles in 1933 being 107,031 units, compared with 65,492 units in 1932. Next in order was the United Kingdom, whose foreign shipments totalled 51,692 units, as against 40,178 units in 1932; France rose to 25,466 from 19,206; Canada to 20,403 from 12,534; Germany to 13,350 from 11.025; and Italy to 7389 from 6511.

A HINT FOR NEW DRIVERS. New drivers are often shy of reversing. When you have taken the wrong road, do not turn into the nearest side road, and then reverse back into the main road, but rather proceed past the side road, or, better still, find a gateway, and reverse into it. There is obviously much more danger from traffic on the main road than there is in the side road. It may so happen that you have to reverse in a narrow road at a dangerous place on a hillside, with a sharp fall-away on the road at one side. If this should occur, always keep the car’s radiator facing the danger, and that should be a general rule of reversing. MOTOR VEHICLES. 33 MILLIONS IN WORLD. There are now 33,330,572 motor vehicles registered in the world, according to statistics received by the National Roads and Motorists’ Association. The United States lias 20,514,295 of the world’s passenger car registrations, the highest total for any country. France has 1,397.053, and England is third with 1,092,619 registrations. The world total for motor vehicles includes 347.507 buses and 5,394,883 commercial vehicles. The statistics also show that there are now 9,152,282 miles of roads in the world, the mileage by continents being:—America, 3,849,594; Africa, 362,348; Asia, 1,061,452; Europe, 3,364,657; Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania, 514,231.