TESTING MOTOR SPEEDS

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12393, 12 March 1926, Page 7

TESTING MOTOR SPEEDS

SINGLE STOP WATCH INACCURACIES ON CURVED ROADS MOTORISTS UP IN ARMS (By Telegraph—Special to “Times.”) AUCKLAND, March 11. Methods of calculating car speeds were up for discussion by the Auckland Automobile Association, when dis. satisfaction was expressed with the system of relying on a single stoj watch used by the traffic inspector, Often speeds so determined were ai variance with the car’s speedometer After listening to a motorist’s account of how he was apprehended for alleged speeding, the association was unanimously of the opinion that the method; of calculating speeds should ’be investigated. The motorist related how he wai passing through Mount Albert on hiway to Muriwai motor races. His small son told him that a speed tra> was ahead, but the boy’s mother treated the information as superfluous, ant said: "Your dad will never ge caught.” To justify this confidents “dad” watched the speedometer care

fully, and kept the needle wavering at 23 miles an hour. To the consternation of all he was stopped at the end of the trap, and told that his speed was 31 miles an hour, and that a prosecution would ensue. Several members said the complaint was one of many. A single-ended trap had been operating at Takapuna also, and it was time this method of timing was challenged. UNDESERVED PENALTIES The secretary, Mr G. W. Hutchison, said it was certain that motorists were suffering undeserved penalties through inevitable inaccuracies of a single stop watch. The court should be urged to x pronounee approval of some reliable system of timing vehicles. Traps were sometimes set on curves over 440 yards distance, measured with tape only. The correct method of determining the distance on a curved road was by survey. Errors in clocking on a 440 yards trap were quadrupled when the speed was caluclated in miles per hour. The question was' referred to .the legal committee with power to act.