The Dominion. MONDAY,. SEPTEMBER 28,. 1908. THE ABUSES OF MOTOR-DRIVING

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 313, 28 September 1908, Page 6

The Dominion. MONDAY,. SEPTEMBER 28,. 1908. THE ABUSES OF MOTOR-DRIVING

Local motorists, who arc now so numerous as to permit us to speak of " the motoring public," may have felt a little puzzled by the cable message which on Friday reported Mr. S. F. Edge as having forsworn " dangerous motoring competitions " out of deference to public feeling. The statement by Me. Edge meant that public, attention in England is still concentrator on what'may bo called motoring ethics, a subject that has been filling columns of space in the London and other English journals for some time past. There were two aspects to the question. On the ono hand there was an outcry, which, from its volume, could only mean that public opinion was thoroughly aroused against the tyranny of the motor on the country roads throughout Great Britain. Simultaneously there was proceeding a vigorous campaign, headed by motor-car manufacturers and motorists themselves, against the abuses of unrestricted motorracing. When it is said that Mr. Harvey du Cros was prominent in the campaign, motorists will realise that a grave situation had been reached. The immediate cause of the outburst of feeling was the terrible accident on the Brooklands track, when a 76-h.p. car travelling "well over 100 miles an hour to quote the Automolor Journal— sworved into a competitor, killed the mechanician instantly, and " as usually happens in such cases," burst into flames. This catastrophe, the climax of a series of such accidents, focusscd public attention on the ltoyal Automobile Club's " Four Inch" raco in the Isle of Man, which has just been dccidcd— a race for cars with four-inch cylinders over a course described by the Club as severe. Mr. John Burns issued a warning in the House of Commons that public opinion was hardening against the abuses of motor-driving, but the Club did not take the hint, and the Times at once began a campaign against unrestricted motor-racing. • . The original Tourist Trophy races, it was pointed out, wera intended to pro- j

mote, and did promote, the improvement of engines propelling cars at comparatively moderate speeds. A limit was sec to the consumption of petrol and to the diameter of the cylinders, and tho manufacturers did succeed in finding a means of producing speed with a maximu® of economy. The race in the Isle of Man had not this excuse. No limit was set to the consumption of petrol and as the car that won had been driven at 83 miles per hour on the Brooklands track, it was clear, even if he Club had not frankly admitted it, that only enormous speed on a severe and dangerous road was aimed at. Against public indignation, therefore, there was no set-off in the shape of some possible lessons in the improvement of motor-construction. The only things that the race might have taught—the highest speed possible to "Four-Inch" cars and their possibilities in tho way of I"!!-? , n g ~ Wero already known. _ What, asked the Times, "is the object of fitting cars with engines capable of developing speeds over eighty miles an hour, in a country where the law declares twenty miles an hour to be the speed limit 1 There can be only one answer. • A lace of this kind can be nothing but part of the system of defying and evading the law which is rousing widespread and just resentmont." Of course it could be, urged that high speeds arc sought in order that the sport of .motor-racing might bo properly served. To this the reply is that motor-racing, even on a track, " demoralises motorists by setting up standards of speed; to which they aro always striving to 'approximate on public roads, while to the spectators of the ghastly scenes presented from time to timo they are as demoralising as a bull-fight, appealing, as they do, to the same savage instincts lying more or less dormant under the' restraints of civilisation." There is growing up i n England, it appears pretty certain, something like a deep popular hatred of the motorist, in which the just are confounded with the unjust. The motor-racing business has been, as Mr« Jarrott, who speaks with authority, wrote in 1906, "a tragedy of commercialism 'V "the world places an enormous financial premium on [a motor-car si- success, .and this supremacy has to be obtained at all costs." But manufacturers are now realising that the war of speeds has created a serious danger to their interests in the'shape.of a public opinion very hostile—to a large extent unreasonably hostile— towards motorists and motoring. The drivers who caro nothing for tho comfort and safety of the public are tho and the majority are as eager as!anybody to sec that minority disappear. In New Zealand, although motoring is very firmly established, there' is • fortunately no conflict between tho motorist and the public. Thero havo been motor-races in this country, but they have not been attended by disaster or any undesirable circumstances, and- local motorists may be trusted to discountenance the introduction of such elements into their pleasure as those, the effects of which- the motorists of Great Britain aro already feeling ratb.gr severely.