FITTING OF GOVERNORS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22444, 13 June 1936, Page 11 (Supplement)

FITTING OF GOVERNORS

Tyith a campaign in progress in the United States to reduce the motor accident toll the use of speed-limiting devices on motor vehicles is being discussed with widespread interest. Efforts are being made to make compulsory the use of a mechanical governor—a small device placed on a vehicle to limit its speed—on all types of cars. Just as fervently the proposition is being opposed as an ineffective means of preventing serious accidents. However, it is reported that the device is being voluntarily adopted in many places. All now trucks and passenger oars of New York's Department of Sanitation, for example, are to be equipped with governors limiting their speed to 25 miles an hour, whilo in Now Jersey a driver who had lost his licence for speeding has won it back on condition that ho keep on his car a governor holding it to not more than forty miles an hour. The idea of controlling speed by mechanical devices on cars is not new, states the New York Times. For many years every major truck fleet in the country has equipped its vehicles with these mechanisms, and some of the largest bus lines also employ such controls. A governor on a car prevents it from being driven at a higher speed than a predetermined maximum. This maximum is generally set at .'JO to .% miles an hour for trucks, and at 50 to 52 miles an hour for buses. There are a great many types of governors on the market, but perhaps the most common is one that regulates the flow of petrol into the carburetter. In this way the predetermined engine speed cannot be exceeded. The other major type of control acts upon the transmission as distinct from the motor, keeping down the speed of the car itself. Advocates of mechanical speed control led by Charles A. Harnett, New York State Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, point to the safety record of commercial vehicles as compared with the passenger-car record. They argue that speed is a concomitant of perhaps

Arguments Against Their Use

as high as 75 per cent of serious highway accidents, and that cutting down the speed would reduce tho number, or at least tho gravity, of many mishaps. But it would bo extremely difficult and expensive to enforce a "safe" speed limit for all cajs. Opponents—among them most of the automobile manufacturers —contradict all tjiese points, and set up other objections to the employment of controlling mechanisms on cars. The comparatively better safety record of commercial vehicles is attributable largely to more skilful drivers, better equipment and safer maintenance of the vehicles, with frequent inspections. Whilo speed enters into many accidents, most of these occur at rates of less than fifty miles an hour, below which it would bo impractical to set the suggested governing devices.