SLOW DOWN IN STORMS ?

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 28 August 1939, Page 8

SLOW DOWN IN STORMS ?

"YES" SAY RAC. ‘ .VO" SAYS SCIENTIST fßy Air Mail—Special Correspondent! LONDON, sth August. What should a motorist do in a storm to ensure maximum safety? Should h# accelerate, or reduce speed? The que#» tion of protecting the motorists from lightning has exercised the minds of motoring experts in Britain, but they ar# not agreed regarding the measures to b# adopted. The Royal Automobile Club states that normally people inside a saloon car art not exposed to danger. ‘The club however, that it is advisable to reduce th# speed of the car,’ especially when driving in the flat country, since, if a trail a| rarefied air is created in the rear of th# car, any electric dtachage is attrscte4 to it. Also the windows on the side a| the car from which the wind is blowing should he closed, as lightning stroka# have a way of following draughts.’’ Professor A. M. Low, a scientist meqg, her of the club, thinks differently. I# is absurb,” be said this week, “to say that people are safe in a saloon car. Th# ‘cage’ effect of a steel body might prevent persons from being burned if the car wer# struck by a branch of the lightning. Nothing would save (hem if a direct stroke of some thousands of millions oi volts in strength cams along. “Lightning will find an easier path it rarefied air. But the rise in safety brought about by a motorist slowing dow% from 70 m.p.h. to 20 in.p.h. in a thunderstorm would be so negligible as to count almost for nothing. Draughts, hem us# they often contain particles of moist might increase the conductivity of th# an as it enters the car. But there agai# the benefit would be extremely small."