GUESSING SPEED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 8 June 1927, Page 7

GUESSING SPEED

WHAT EXPERIMENT SHOWED

The car, .'vou. are-"driving is probably capable i. a speed of from 60 tojpmiles an hour—but you cannot, use this speed for any length of time without courting The modern highway, while buihVlike a speedwav, is not a, one-way proposition like a race-track. Therefore the driver who speeds must; always make frequent and nerve-racking stops which cuts down his average time to a minimum. His speed is far below that of the driver who maintains a steady pace hour after hour. ' .;,': .'>', •,". : ' One driver Las discovered that, much can be learned about speeding by, driving 1 the car with the speedometer [disconnected.' For the test he secured;the services of a friend who followed him over a prescribed,course in another car. The driver with the disconnected speedometer proceeds just as he would under normal conditions, and then checked up with the-actual speed record, as noted, by.'the friend following him. The results were surprising. Invariably he drbve- 'from 5 to 15 miles an hour faster than be thought, he was going. The experiment showed plainly that the average driver cannot guess his speed—and that he invariably goes faster than he thinks. ■lt shows that a car driver is speeding whenever'his conception of a safe stopping distance is less than the actual stopping-distance.