Skidding Experiences.

Progress, Volume II, Issue 7, 1 May 1907, Page 254

Skidding Experiences.

Winter is the time for skidding — any high or rough country the place. When the combination is strong the experiences are the reverse of colourless. A correspondent writes :—: — I shall never forget my feelings of astonishment when my first car, a small high runabout with smooth tyres, turned round suddenly and faced the opposite way. We were driving on wet wood blocks on the level. The car repeated the performance, describing a huge figure eight from kerb to kerb, on the same road, on another occasion during rain. There was no damage done, although the wheels (wire) fetched up with a shock against the kerbstone. My next bad skid was on ice. I was driving a powerful petrol car, 36 h.p., on a frost bound road. All four wheels were fitted with Grose non-skid bands. A farmer's cart obliged me to run off the crown of the road where there was snow, the rest of the road being rough ice. As soon as two wheels touched the snow the direction of the car was changed. The front wheel ploughed up the bank, and struck a glancing blow at the wall. The back wheel at the same time struck the bank, and the shock was somewhat distributed, the result being two bent axles, straightened at the cost of £8, and a damaged front tyre. My last skid was the most serious. I was driving a large car weighing some 25 cwts. down a hill on granite. The driving wheels were fitted with Desclee non-skid bands. A tramcar was sighted some eighty yards below on a single line, and I moved to the left. The car skidded. I got it straight ; it skidded again, and the tram driver pulled up,l but my car swung completely round, and the left hand hind wheel swung into the front of the tramcar with sufficient force to project my only passenger on the back seat out of the car into the front portion of the tramcar, where he cut his head. The tool box on the step was smashed to atoms, the car body was seriously damaged, tension rod, etc., broken, and the tramcar was sufficiently punished to require assistance in surmounting the hill. As there was a cemetery handy, I left the car in a shed, and got my passenger to the doctor in a cab. He was sitting at the time of the collision with his hands in his pockets. The granite was so greasy that it was difficult to stand on it with my golfing boots on. Luckily, lam insured, but it is evident to prevent skidding, nonskids should have projecting rivets, and not smooth steel bands. On ice, these smooth steel protectors are a source of danger. I have had my car stopped on a hill with the driving wheels spinning round all the time, polishing the ice still smoother. On greasy granite and wet tram rails they are as dangerous as smooth tyres. I have been motoring for four years, and am hoping to do without horses eventually ; but living 950 feet above the sea level, in a very hilly district, I have not yet found a non-skid that I can depend on for winter work. If one could screw studs, blunt or sharp, to suit the weather conditions, into a strong non-skid band, as one does into horses' shoes, the motor car may be depended upon. Can any reader make a suggestion that will enable me to get rid of three hungry harness horses, and use to the fullest extent two powerful cars ?