CYCLING & MOTOR NOTES

Otago Witness, Issue 3514, 19 July 1921, Page 42

CYCLING & MOTOR NOTES

By

DEMON.

For many years motor cycle, police have operated in San Francisco and other Ajmeriean cities. Now the system has been adopted in London. The motor cycle police in the metropolis will help to regulate and i speed up traffic, it being stipulated that their duties shall be administrative’ rather i than punitive. | "The good roads of Taranaki were not constructed out of toll-gate revenue, but out of loan money.’’ said Mr L. A. Edwards, in an address to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce. ‘'Toll-gates, are obsolete. .Such a system would brand New Zealand aa a retrograde country. It is cur duty as citizens to prove that we can evolve a system which will be a vast improvement on toll-gates. The very applicants for toll-gates admit that toll-gates are barbarous expedients, and are suggested because of the absence, so far, of a comprehensive reading scheme.” the problem of clearer motoring by becoming joint-owners of cars. “ Several oi the cars .here are owned jointly by two or three people,” said a West End garage proprietor to a Daily Mail reporter. "They were under ‘sole ownership’ until the petrol increase and higher motor taxation came. One of my clients, who sold a halfshare in his four-seater ear, told me that on an income of £IOOO a year lie felt no longer justified in driving anything heavier than a cycle car. One uses the oar in midweek and the ether makes a. welcome weekend break by two days’ motoring. They have no hard-and-fast rule, and the arrangement seems to- work .amicably.” borne remarkable motor cycle track records were recently established on Brooklands ! England) by IT. l.e Yack, who, riding a 7 h.p. Dunlop-shod. Indian, put up the following now records: —Flying kilo (1093 yards), in 21sec (106.52 m.p.h.): flying mile, 36.250 c (99.45 m.p.h.); flying live miles, 3min 21.15e0 (89.50 m.p.h.) ; standing 10 miles. 6min 57.95ec (86.14 m.p.h.). Le Vitek subsequently finished third in the Senior Tourist Trophy Road Race. A further reduction of 10 per cent. in the price of 'motor car covers lias been announced by the Dunlop Rubber Company. Since April last the cost of Dunlop covers lias been reduced one-fourth, which means a considerable difference in car-run-ning cost. The prices of motor cycle tyres and bicycle tyres have also been considerably reduced by the. same company. -—An idea of the popularity of motor ’ cycle reliability trials in England may be gathered from the fact that the annual trial from London to Edinburgh (402 g rnilcs) drew 207 nominations. As this is a hilly route, and has to be negotiated! between 7 p.m. one night until 7 p.m. the following day. with three and a-half hours compulsory stops for meals, it is a stiff proposition, but all the same is extremely popular in English motor cycling circles. tion of the Senior Tourist Motor Cycle Race, decided three weeks ago in the Isle of Man (off England!, and won by Davies on an A..J.S. machine. The machines entered comprised 12 Nortons, 8 Sunbeams, 8 Triumphs, 6 B.S.A.’s, 4 Seotts, 4 Indians, 3 Douglases. 3 Rovers. 3 James. 2 Blaokburnee, 2 Martins. 2 'Budges, 2 A..J.S.’s, and 1 Coulsnn. With only two machines entered, the English-made A.J.S. did exceptionally well to carry off this classic road event. The Royal Automobile Club of England will hold two motor ear road races in the I.de. of Man next year, permission for which was obtained from the Manx authorities. The races will probably be on the same lines as the pre-war "Tourist Trophy” events, and will be international in character. PETROL FROM BROWN COAL. It is reported from Germany that a process has been discovered for obtaining petrol Tom brown coal. One remembers, however, that Germany was supposed in pre-war days to have found the means of making synthetic rubber, but, despite the fact that Germany starved for rubber during the war period nothing lias developed yet in that direction. If a process for distillation of motor spirit from lignite or brown coal has been discovered, and is commercially practicable, then it means a big tiling to motorists in those countries where there are lingo deposits of lignite. In Gippsland (Victoria) alone there is cotnpuiod to be 30.000,000.000 tons of brown coal, so that if petrol can really be obtained from the same then some day there is , promise of cheap fuel for motors. FOUR WHEEL BRAKES. The fact that all the contestants in the French Grand Prix Motor Car Race are using cars braked on all four wheels has for the lime being focussed attention to . the undoubted advantages of this system of i braking. A motor car with brakes on all f four wheels may be stepped in half the dis- . tance required if the brakes act on the year wheels only. For this reason the four i wheel braking system is looked upon in many quarters ae promising to be an important. factor in the reduction of motor i car accidents. Half a dozen European cars j have four-wheel brakes, and another half i dozen makers have announced that they t will use them on their new models. An >„ American firm recently placed on the - market a car that is braked on all wheels, and is operated hydraulically.

GOOD DRIVERS. ; ARE YOU ONE OF THEM? If the average motorist were asked if he or she really knew how to drive an automobile there would be no answer forthcoming. The question would be considered an insult. And yet very few people properly understand the art of handling a car. Most people consider that when they can properly control a car, start and stop it, change gears without undue noise, and otherwise make it do the things they want it to do, they are finished drivers. Such is far from the truth. There are two requisites to becoming a good driver. The . first and most important is to have a good judgment. The second is to get the most out. of a car with the least amount of wear and tear on the machine. The really good driver is the one who makes the best time and yet takes the fewest chances. This driver exercises caution, knows when to go ahead and when to delay, realises the speed of other machines in all directions around him, and never is at a locs to know just how fast to proceed without danger at any place, and under any and a.U conditions. This driver is never reckless. Fifteen miles an hour to him is a. reckless speed under some conditions, while a mile a • minute is safe under others. He makes bis time by making his speed fit the conditions under which he is travelling. A good driver never approaches a street intersection without having his car under control for any emergency. He never races by a hospital or school, nor races a train to a crossing. He never passes another ■ vehicle going in the same direction without first warning the car ahead of his intention, and never attempts to crowd by when a third car is approaching from the opposite i direction. He is a considerate driver, this good driver. He always gives another car plenty , of room, especially a small car which has a. harder time off the highway than the heavy car. He does not swing in ahead of a car he is passing' immediately he clears it. He never "hogs” the road nor does he i try and. crowd the other fellow off if the latter happens to be one of those who demands 75 per cent, of the highway, i On the straight, open road you will find the good driver making time, and after an all-day run lie will be among the first to ■ arrive at his destination. He knows when • to drive fast and when to drive slowly. These arc only a few of the things a good driver does. He has learned the value . of keeping to the right at all times. lie knows the dangers of the road, hut above ■ all else he realises the importance of using caution, and appreciates the dangers that can exist under the thousand and one conditions under which he drives, and he lias his car under such control that no matter how unexpected a. new condition arises, ho has anticipated it and is not surprised. INFLATED PETROL PRICES. The petrol question really demands all the attention every individual and every organisation concerned in the motoring movement can devote to it (says the English Field). Me know, and a Government committee has reported, that the market in_ our fuel is not a. free one, and that- its price is manipulated by monopolists to an arbitrary degree. It is now stater that cargoes ot petrol are being hawked from post to pest, to secure purchasers. The price of crude oil—which we are told governs the price of petrol—has been reduced by as much as 40 per cent, yet the price of petrol remains what: it was. There is no denying ihe restrictive effect on motoring of fuel at 3s 6d per gallon, but doubtless having calculated, and been justified in the calculation, that a greater profit is to be obtained by maintaining that price than by reducing it. and so stimulating consumption, we are still being squeezed by this oil trust. The amount of the squeeze is seen in the fact that the. excess profit of about Is per gallon must he yielding the profiteers well up to £20,000,000 for 1921. If any British combine attempted to levy such an imposition on an article in such universal use all the trades unions in the country would he in arms, we have no doubt; but. as this is an international combine, it is left to the direct victims to work out their own salvation, and up to the present they have not achieved a scintilla of success, because they are not sufficiently determined to compel a change. A Government conference does not seem calculated to take us very far, but it is an indication of interest in a matter almost as important to the public as the price of coal. We have been told that there is a reduction in petrol under consideration, and we expect that, as usual, it. will be a. few coppers when effected, and then only to forestall some sort of official protest that the Dutch and American trading interests are taking unfair advantage of the facilities afforded them in this country, which will he borne in mind in the future when conditions permit of more active resentments. LAMPS AND VISION. “M.C.C.” writes to the Dominion in reference to the Supreme Court ruling that a motor vehicle must, travel at night at such a speed that it can stop within the range of vision given by its headlights. A few nights ago, while walking across a badly-lit city street, he was nearly run down by a hansom cab, which suddenly swerved into a

side street. The cab had two candle lamps, but the range of vision provided by them was about half the length of the horse. The driver obviously had not seen the pedestrian—a dark object against a dark : background—and it was only the pedes- | trian’s agility that prevented an accident, | that, for all anyone knows, might have been ' attended with fatal results. “As a motorist,” asks this correspondent. “I want to i know whether the obligation which three j Supreme Court judges sav rests on the | motorist lies also on the driver of a horsei drawn vehicle. No one has ever heard of I such a principle, though horsed vehicles I have been on the roads at night for a thoui sand, years or more. If a horse-drawn ! vehicle can proceed at such a speed at night ■ that it cannot pull up within the radius of j vision given by its lamps, on what grounds | of common sense and equity is the same I right denied to the vehicle propelled by | a petrol engine? In a ease in the Magis- ! trate’s Court the other day it was ruled [ that a tram car was under no obligation to | pull up so as to avoid hitting an unlighted | vehicle on the track. Motorists, however, : seem fair game for everybody these days, j and the next thing in this progressive Do- , minion will be the re-enactment of the old rule that a motor car had to be preceded by a man on foot carrying a red flag. Have we any rights on the road at all?”