HOLIDAY ACCIDENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19833, 31 December 1927, Page 9 (Supplement)

HOLIDAY ACCIDENTS.

MANY MINOR COLLISIONS. The Christmas rush was marked by certain carelessness on tho part of motorists. Drivers who are either nervous or incompetent should keep out of the main shopping centres in these busy .times. Rather than park in a quiet street many drivers who lack skill will drive into the thick of traffic and cause nuisance to everybody. One sees many dented mudguards to testify that some" party might have taken more care. There has also been more broken glass lying about the streets than ever before. Apparently two cars meet in collision and escape with broken headlights or mudguards. Neither party bottlers to make a proper clearance of the debris. During this week patches of broken glass lay for two or three days at several intersections in Manukau Road. If the occupants of a car are not injured in an accident there is no excuse for leaving debris on the road. A by-law should be drawn to compel motorists to remove all puncture agents from the road after an accident. RUBBER AND VIBRATION. In recent years many new uses have been found for rubber in automobile production. and there are good reasons for believing that the applications of this material will be developed still farther. In the days of low speed engines and rough roads most of the shocks experienced by motorists resulted from road obstacles, and even then the most effective shock absorber was a rubber product—the pneumatic tyre. With the increase in engine speeds and the improvement in reads there has been a shifting of the relative importance of sources of vibration and today various unpleasant forms of roughness and noise have their origin in tho engine. In tho four-cylinder type we have the unbalanced secondary force and in engines with more than four cylinders we often have torsional vibration at certain critical speeds. The occupants of tho car know of the existence of these vibrations only through their transmission to the chassis and thence to tho body, and if such transmission can be prevented tho actual engine vibration becomes much less objectionable. It is for this reason that rubber cushions are now widely used for engine supports, rubber or rubberised fabric spring connections aro coming into use, rubber centers arc inserted in clutches to prevent tho transmission of irregularities in crankshaft torque, and rubber cushions are placed in the propeller shaft connection to prevent the transmission of irregularities in tho torque impressed on that part. Even the steering gear is now in some ■oases provided with a flexible member of rubber or rubberised fabric to protect the hands and arms of tho driver against rond shock. AN UNORTHODOX CAR. The idea of placi.ig the ongino at the rear of the chassis Iras recently been revived in Franco in a rather interesting small car. While this vehicle is very unorthodox in design, it has many praiseworthy features, and gives evidence of careful study. Tho layout shows a complete departure from ordinary practice in chassis construction. Strictly speaking, there is no frame, its place being taken by the pressed-stcel body which forms a kind of stout box, stiffened internally by ridges. At the front and the rear tho body is traversed by heavy-gauge steel tubes, which, in addition to acting as cross-members, carry tho spring supports. Independent suspension is given to each wheel by means of coil springs working in steel cylinders. Tho lower cylinder, which telescopes into tho upper one, contains a secondary spring which provides a shock-absorbirrg effect. Tho arrangement of springs in tubes is duplicated in the case of tho rear axle; all tho springs work in a bath of thick oil. The engine, which is particularly compact, is a horizontally opposed fourcylinder air-cooled unit, with a cone clutch and three-speed gearbox built up in one block with the differential casing. The bore and stroke are 70 m.m. and 96 m.m. respectively, giving a total capacity of 1480 c.c. Tho car is thus rated at 9 h.p. in Franco and would bo called 12.1. h.p. in England.