HIGH ROAD AND BY-ROAD

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19799, 1 February 1936, Page 24 (Supplement)

HIGH ROAD AND BY-ROAD

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DANGER AFTER DARK. GLARING LIGHT PROBLEM. CAUSE OF MANY ACCIDENTS. Figures lie before me which prove, with tragic eloquence, how death drives out at dusk, writes a contributor in the Sunday Post. Of the first 1500 fatal accidents on British highways this year, no fewer than 950 happened after dark. Over 63 per cent. Eighteen per cent, more than two years ago. The worst of weather conditions occur in the darkest of months. But spread over the whole year the total number of night accidents involving loss of life only drops to a little over 31 per cent, of the whole. In 1933, 2537 out of 7001 fatal accidents took place between dusk and dawn. Why all these night accidents? Is it not because we are driving too fast for our eyes, on roads that are by no means perfect? Research has proved that messages from the eye are responsible for 85 per cent, of all our muscular reaction. In the dark the pupil of the eye expands to gather as much as possible. A brilliant light striking the open pupil causes a sudden contraction. This contraction which takes about one-sixteenth of a second —is about 60 times as fast as the subsequent expansion. Which means that after a brilliant headlight has passed we need three and threequarter seconds to readjust our eyes to the darkness. And at 40 miles an hour three and three-quarter seconds represents 220 feet—during which we are practically blind! Deceitful Motoring Aid. Yet instead of slowing down at night, when only about a quarter of the traffic is on the roads, do we not tend to increase our speed, relying on our headlights to see us through ? Figures say so, anyway. My statistics show that the average driver goes from ten to fifteen per cent, faster at night. Overdriving the headlights is one of the most prolific causes of night crashes. Badly-lighted roads come second, while defective headlights and uneven road surfaces follow closely behind. The headlights of a modern car will throw a beam at least 500 feet ahead. Ample, maybe, for speeds of 50 and 60 m.p.h. on a perfectly smooth, straight road. But our highways are not like that. I know of a case where a driver was killed by a shadow. It was caused by his own headlamps and a bumb in the road. It looked like a body. The driver swerved violently to avoid, as he thought, running down an already injured person. The car turned over three times. He lived long enough to gasp out the tale. Had he been going at 30 miles instead of 50 miles he would be alive to-day. Headlamps can be the most deceitful of motoring aids. Even if they are correctly focussed when the car leaves the works, they soon work out of alignment. A fatal crash has just occurred because an off-side headlamp was turned too much to the right. To the oncoming driver it appeared as if the car w r as coming straight at him. He swerved to avoid it and landed in the ditch, his car atop of him. The ideal would be to do away with headlights altogether by providing adequate street lighting on all main roads throughout the country. But while local authorities continue to neglect their duty, motorists must go on using their own lamps. I have a record of a curious accident, all caused by a badly-placed street lamp. It stood, for it has been moved now, on the bulge of a slight bend at the bottom of a hill. The driver of a car descending the hill reached a point when his eye caught the lamp below him at about the usual level of an oncoming motor cycle's headlamp. He instinctively pulled over to his left, hit a tree at 40, and landed in hospital. The Lone Pedestrian. Then what of the lone pedestrian ? Twenty-seven per cent, of the total night fatalities in 1933 were due to walkers. Motorists are inclined to blame the dark road surfaces which fail to show up pedestrians. Insurance folk blame the overdriving of headlights. Take a typical case. Pedestrian wearing dark clothes is walking in road. Car approaches behind him. Before its headlights have picked him out from the general black mass of the road, another car swings round the bend ahead and dazzles the first driver, who steers blindly for the black “tunnel” between oncoming car and roadside. Nine times out of ten he never sees pedestrian at all. But the fact that he does not stop proves he is overdriving his own eyes. What is the remedy? Motorists declare that lighter-coloured roads would go a long way to help. They would show up the pedestrian in relief. But although they cost no more than ordinary roads ' to put down, and could be done gradI ually as each new section required J repair, few authorities will use them, ; Scotland and Warwickshire are the | most progressive places in this con- ! nection. It is no use laying a white j road if mud is allowed to continually ' darken it again. In Scotland they do ! not. Perhaps that is why, out of 2494 accidents caused by collisions with pedestrains in the roadway in i Great Britain in 1933, both by day | and night, only 251 occurred in Scotj land. ! The hour between five and six in j the evening is the most accident prone, j Perhaps this is due to it being, the usual “rush- hour” in big cities. The I fact that the morning “rush hour” j produces fewer accidents is partly | explainable by the fact that people are less tired in the morning, and ! partly that for four months of the ! year, at least, the evening “rush hour” ; comes after dark. The speed of modern motors is greatly to blame for | this needless slaughter on our roads? ; My earnest exhortation to all drivers i is “never drive so fast that you cannot ! pull up within the limit of your visI ion.” | That means, if you can only see ! two yards, stop dead. Do not blind | through and “hope for the best.”

SPEED IN PURSUITS. IMPORTANT POINT STRESSED. An important point is raised in “ The Motor” in connection with fcipeedometer readings in c.ases in which the police rely on car speedometer readings in speed prosecutions. It concerns mainly cars that have high acceleration power, and it affects every owner of a high horse-powered car. Magistrates and a good many other people, says "The Motor,” cannot understand how it is possible for one car, running behind another —such as a police car—to register, intermittently, much higher speeds. In the case of a driver of a high horse-powered car being followed at 20 yards by a police car, if there are obstructions calling for acceleration periods the police car will have to travel at comparatively high speeds to catch up again in short distances. Therefore, the speedometer reading of the police car will be quite unreliable- In one case of the kind recently the driver of the car with high aoceleration never registered 30 m.p.'h. The driver knew he was being followed, and the speedometer was watched by a passenger. But the evidence of the officers in the police car was that the car followed had done 40 m.p.h. It is mathematically demonstrable that, under such conditions the less powerful following car must reach a higher speed to catch up the car the speed of which the police are trying to check. The point is quite 'iuund. Catching up readings should play no part in any prosecution, no matter at what 'stage of a pursuit such readings are reached. The only true test is when the cars remain at the same distance apart undisturbed. BCHOOLED DRIVERS. AMERICA v*.'ADS THE WAY. One of the most important motoring developments of recent years has occurred in the State' of New Jersey, U.S.A. It is not the usual thing—neither the completion of a magnificent highway nor a new advancement in automotive design. Instead/ it is a highly intohlgent effort to solve the human equation in the problem of modern motoring. For despite the perfection now attained in building the roads and cars of to-day, the human factor in mechanical transportation has largely been ignored.

New Jersey bids fair to make motoring history by assailing this problem at its very root. The Slate has introduced into seventeen high schools a course of study in the principle's ancl practice of driving an automobile. The idea is eminently practical.

The driving course in the schools is broad and thorough. Members of the faculty contribute their services. So do traffic officers, traffic judges, inspectors of automotive vehicles, and other officials interested in motoring problems. Automobile dealers have co-operated by lending chassis, motors, and even complete cars to the schools. At the -completion of the school term the students are given a written test in which the work of the course is reviewed. The Motor Vehicle Bureau of Mew Jersey is giving valuable aid by accepting the certificates awarded to students who pass the driving course .and exempting them from the written examination normally required of those who seek New Jersey driving licences. SLIPPING THE CLUTCH. Slipping the -clutch Is a pra-ctice which is very properly -condemned, since it is destructive of the frictional faces of that unit • If the car cannot be driven slowly enough .in top gear in traffic without slipping the -clutch, a lower ratio should be meshed. But there are occasions when it is wiser to allow the clutch to slip a little rather than to throw too heavy a -strain on the transmission. If Die car must be started on a very steep hill, or another vehicle is in tow, it is better to accelerate the engine until it is “revving” fairly fast, and there Is a good output of power, and then let the -clutch engage gradually, so that there is not that abrupt take"--up of the drive, which throws heavy stresses on the gears and bearings and often -causes the engine to stall. In such circumstances, always use low gear, and by operating the brakes and accelerator pedal with good judgment avoid a bounding start, or letting Die car begin to -roll backward before the clutch engages.

ENGINE CAPACITY. A simple way of determining the capacity of an engine (in cubic centimetres) is to square the bore of the cylinders (measured in centimetres), multiply by .7854 (a constant), and by the length of the stroke in centimetres, and, finally, multiply by the number of cylinders, also in centimetres. For example, with a four-cylinder engine, 80 mm. bore and 130 mm. stroke, the cubic capacity would be 8 x 8 x .7854 x 13 x 4, equal to 2640 c.c. This calculation could be simply expressed in the following formula:— C.c. equals .7854 D2SN where D equals cylinder bore in centimetres, S the stroke in centimetres and N the number of cylinders. CHOKED JETS. Nearly every car nowadays is fitted with an efficient petrol filter; in addition, fuel, supplied from service pumps is very thoroughly filtered. Thus motorists seldom have trouble with choked jets. Nothing is infallible, however, and with all Die care in the world it is slill possible for dirt to find its way into Die jets. When this Jiappenos a thoroug cleaning of the tank is the only cure, but it may not be convenient at the time. 1L will be found, however, that the dirt is much less likely to find its way down the petrol pipe if a good quantity of fuel be maintained in the tank. II is a good plan to avoid using the reserve supply, as this is, of course, taken from the bottom of the tank, , where the dirt collects.

SPARKS. “ When did you first notice your wife had fallen out of the car?” *• Everything seemed so quiet.” A man was having a trial run in one of those very ■small cars. Suddenly the light of day vanished, lo reappear soon. “ Hullo,” said the surprised passenger, “ was that v a tunnel we went under?" “ No,” replied Die demonstration expert carelessly, “ that was a bus.” The checking of valve clearances should he carried out while tile engine is warm. At this lime allowance is made for expansion caused hv any in-

crease in temperature of the entire power unit, the clearances being those normally obtained under working conditions. An appeal lo owners of dogs to keep Iheir animals off tlie road is made by Die N.R.M.A. Dogs which have the habit of rushing from Die footpath to bark at every passing vehicle distract j the attention of drivers, and may be Die cause of an accident. No motorist will run over a dog if he can avoid it, but a sudden swerve to miss an animal may place several liumin lives in danger. If dogs are carried in cars ; 'hey should be kept away* from the J 'Tout seat, where their sudden move- ! mentis are likely to upset the driver's I control ox hi* vehicle