MOTORING NOTES

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3471, 26 May 1934, Page 8

MOTORING NOTES

ONE-PEDAL OARS ARE COMINO.!

Shall we reach the stage when we can control a car with one pedal, a gear-lever and the steering wheel? “ Impossible,” the unthinking driver will say. Yet this week I drove a “ one-pedal ” car, writes T. H. Wisdom, in the London Daily Herald.

Now the average car—999 out of 1000 —has three pedals: clutch, brake and accelerator.

Removal of the clutch is simple—let is work automatically, like the Bendix clutch fitted to a number of cars. Operated by a servo-motor connected with the induction pipe, the clutch is taken out every time the accelerator pedal is released.

The driver does not have to touch it, and it renders gear-changing a mere matter of moving a lever. That provides us with a two-pedal control car, a stage that has been hailed as a great step forward. But now we can have one-pedal control.

The car I have been testing is a perfectly standard 12 li.p. model, except that the accelerator pedal has been removed. Its place is taken by a device known as the “ Smart Control Pedal,” which combines brakepedal and accelerator. Now, I regard most gadgets with suspicion. And I must admit that I was at first so prejudiced against this particular device that I was disinclined even to try it.

I was mistaken. One-pedal control of a car, as is provided by this invention, makes motoring- safer.

This is how you drive a “ onepedal control ” car. You rest your foot permanently on the brake pedal. A rocking- movement of the foot works the accelerator. You do not move the ankle, but the knee. When the leg- is straight, the engine is ticking over —bend the knee towards the side of the car and you obtain full throttle. Press the brake-pedal, the throttle closes instantly, and the brake, goes on.

Now, in driving a car of the ordinary type, there is a matter, of twofifths of a second wasted in removing the foot from the accelerator to the brake pedal. And that means, at just 30 miles an hour, that you travel 18 feet after you have decided to “ brake,” and before the brakes are actually applied. At 40 m.p.h. the distance is 24 feet.

In an emergency this distance may make all the difference —two' cars’

lengths—between a crash and avoiding one. Sometimes two-fifths of a second seems an eternity. But with the one-control car you save this time. As soon as the brain orders “brake,” the foot is immediately depressed, and the brakes are on in a flash.

That is the main reason why I see a great future for the Smart Control Pedal. I drove the car I had for test some distance in London. Five minutes and the preliminary strangeness had disappeared. So had prejudice, and it only wanted an emergency—when a woman ran cut from behind a bus—to show me the value of the thing. Instinctively I stamped on everything, and' the car came to a stop in its own length. With two pedals tc operate the distance would have been at least double. That convinced me that a device of this kind should be fixed to every car. It is definitely a thing of the fut-j

Another,; thing. It is impossible for the driver to stamp on the accelerator pedal in mistake for the brake. Accidents—serious ones—have been caused through this error. One point still worried me a little. What would happen if something broke? I examined the mechanism which is fairly simple and of sound construction, and discovered that in the unlikely event of anything breaking or jamming, stamping on the brake pedal must close the throttle and stop the car.

We shall hear more of the “onepedal contn'ol” car. Motor manufacturers like the scheme, but are afraid of making a change that is so revolutionary, so they tell me. All I have to say is that here we haYe an indention with wonderful possibilities of making motoring at once simple and safer, and if we do not take advantage of it, then the Americans will. They are not so slow in recognising something good.