DRIVING OF MOTOR-CARS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2060, 11 December 1907, Page 2

DRIVING OF MOTOR-CARS.

[To the Eniwon.] Sir, —Thu complaint of the indignant citizen who called at your office to voice his displeasure with regard to motorists and motor cars excites in me a desire to say something on the other side. There is no doubt that the carelessness and thoughtlessness of many motorists has brought about a prejudice against motor cars on the part of many of the general public, but while consideration should be shown by motorists for those in charge of horse vehicles, the latter should show a certain amount of consideration for motorists, which at present seems almost entirely missing. I have noticed that at least 50 per cent, of the dr.vers of vehicles on hearing a motor car signalling behind them do not trouble to pull a little to- one side to allow the car to pass, with the result —on these bad roads—that the motor is driven to run down off tiie crown of tlio road, causing injury to the tyres, slowing down, the engine, to say nothing of a possible capsize if in ail awkward place. J.t is also a very general practice for drivers of horse vehicles to drive ait night without lights when _ outside the Borough boundaries. This cannot he condemned too stropgly as being a great danger to the lives and limbs of the occupants of both cars and oilier vehicles. It is only due rt-o the remarkable control that the driver has over a car that many accidents have not happened from thiß cause. Your visitor’s assertions that he s-aiw a car going round a corner at tile rate of twenty miles an hour, and another travelling at thirty miles an hour, are both almost certainly unconscious exaggerations, for to one unaccustomed to oars there seems to be something about, them that gives the impression of even greater -peed than they possess. . T once heard some men remark, on seeing a ear round a corner, that it M as travelling at least twenty miles an hour, when on tlio particular gear on which it was then running it could not possibly have exceeded six miles an hour however its driver desired to accelerate it. Again, I heard some people recently say most positively that they saw another car travelling along a country road at over thirty miles an hour, while I happened to know that that particular car was a light power car, which could not possibly under the most favorable conditions attain a speed of twenty-five miles, and it was from various causes extremely improbable that it would be travelling at quite twenty. The public generally are not aware and cannot realise the quickness with which a car can he stopped, for it they could there, would not be the amount of uneasiness with regard to cars that art present exists. Usually a motorist does not- slacken his speed if lie can avoid it, for two reasons, the chief being that it is better to get past a nervous horse as quickly as possible if meeting it, before it lias time to realise wliat it is, for if he stops, the engines make more noise and frighten the horse worse: the other reason is that whenever a motor slows down it takes so long to recover the normal pace. The driver of -a motor car is generally, in fact one might say always, more alert than the driver of a horse, for the reason, that -lie is obliged to keep Iris attention on it, as a motor will not drive itself and keep to tlio road as a horse generally will for a time, therefore if lie does not pay keen attention to his work he will probably find himself in the ditch. The motor car lias undoubtedly come to stay-, and the sooner the general public ••realise this and endeavor to shake off their prejudices the sooner will traffic of all kinds work smoother and without friction.—l am. etc.. “CHAFFEUR.” Gisborne, Hoc. 9.