MOTORING
The New Minister on Accidents To the lay mind the problem of reducing the fatalities on the roads is always complicated by the extraordinary conflict of evidence on the prime causes. It must be assumed that before effective steps can be taken to improve matters the general cause of accidents should be known, or at least chosen. The new Minister of Transport, Captain Wallace, in his first official speech the other day attributed less than 2 per cent. of the accidents to road conditions and 90 per cent. to the human factor. Not very long ago the now famous Mr. Bennett, County Surveyor of Oxford, proved by figures at least as acceptable that road conditions were responsible for, so far as I remember, more than half. Widely divergent views have been expressed in every pub- lished discussion, from the debates of the House of Lords Select Committee to the Bressey Report, as varied as the suggestions for remedies.
The " Absurd Percentage " In this connexion Professor Julian Huxley had a letter in The Times which seemed apposite. Contesting the Minis- ter's statement that a given accident can always be attributed to a single cause, he pointed out that if all roads were divided into separate tracks and provided with fly-over junc- tions head-on collisions and cross-road crashes would auto- matically be eliminated. " As it stands," he went on, " the Minister's statement implies that if all possible improve- ments were made in road conditions, while other conditions remained stationary, the accident-rate would only drop by 2 per cent.," which was . . . " absurd." It certainly seems so, for the truth is, so far as anyone can see it through the fog of statistics and prejudiced statements, that most acci- dents arise from individual causes, due, as a rule, to a deadly combination of out-of-date road-design, traffic congestion, ignorance, carelessness and lack of consideration, all in vary- ing proportions. There is no cure for congestion and none that I have ever heard of for lack of consideration. Ignorance and carelessness may be reduced by education, in time. The real crux is, can the design of the roads be modernised in time?
The 1939 12 Rover The new t z-h.p. Rover is an excellent example of the high-class moderate-powered English car of today, the type in which we outstrip all rivals the world over. It has a very well-designed and roomy body with admirable lines. Its 1,495 c.c. engine, with overhead valves and down-draught carburettor, runs with scarcely perceptible noise and, thanks to the flexible anchorage, with no more perceptible vibration than any first-class six-cylinder and much less than any of the other sort ; gives the car an all-out maximum speed of over 7o miles an hour on the comfortably high-geared top of 4.8 to r, and another of 5o on third. It climbs steep hills in the most creditable fashion ; it is very well sprung, and it has just about the best equipment, at any rate for its class, of any car I have seen.
That equipment includes the freewheel which to my mind remains the best solution of the gear-change problem. With it you can drive anywhere without touching the clutch-pedal except when moving away from rest on bottom gear. Pro- vided you allow a pause of, say, one second in neutral when changing up or down with the engine running fast you need not concern yourself with anything but the pushing forward or pulling back of the gear-lever, an operation which you do with the weight of your fingers. You cannot scrape the gears. Another feature is the automatic chassis-lubrication, towards which you have nothing to do except see that the oil-tank does not run dry ; another the electric sump-gauge, which shows you at any moment the actual level of the oil in the base-chamber, and another the detachable back of the dashboard whereby you can get at everything behind the instrument-dials.
A Well-found Car These show clearly the pains that are taken over making this car what shipowners call well-found. Nothing has been forgotten that enhances the comfort and pleasure of the owner-driver, everything remembered that will prevent him damaging the car by neglect. The Girling brakes are re- markable even in these days of powerful braking, stopping the fully-laden car in 3o yards from 3o miles an hour, the steering is light and steady, the road-holding excellent. The saloon, priced at L300, holds four people and not five—a point on which the makers wisely insist. Two large people sit very comfortably behind, with plenty of room for elbows and legs and feet, with a folding arm-rest between them. There is a very large luggage-hold, with the spare wheel sunk into the lid, with all its implements. The finish inside and out is of the first order, and a point that appealed to me forcibly was the comfort and design of the cushions. The only criticism I had to make on a quite outstanding British car was in the depth of the windscreen. I am tall, and I like to see more of the sky than I could. Sideways the " visibility " is very good.
Ballycastle Bay The first thing you see when you get there is a scattering of palm-trees. They look quite preposterous, as well they might at the same latitude as Labrador and Moscow, but among the jungle of scarlet fuchsias and against that strangely mild sky where daylight lasts most of the night, they presently fall somehow into place. Whether this is due to the sub-tropical air of that northern spot or to one's own imagination it is hard to say. There is nothing sub-tropical or suggestive of palms in the grey walls and the slate roofs of the surroundings, none certainly in the pale sea that divides right and left before Rathlin Island. Yet after the first shock you accept the Ballycastle palms and forget them. You remember that you are still on the extreme edge of the North Channel, the sea round which the mildest corners of the British Isles gather for comfort, Antrim, Wig- townshire, the Isle of Man, a sea which by some miracle has so far escaped being called the British Mediterranean. Per- haps palms are not so surprising after all.
An End of Land It is a place of peace, where life moves slowly. The colours on sea and land and sky are never more than half tones, yet there is depth enough in the faint washes of blue and green and pink, the thousand shades of light that go to make the illusion of blue water. You look due north over the sea which means that its colours are not blurred for you by sun-dazzle and you can see the whole picture of the evening sky reflected in it, the pearl-tinted clouds, the stronger blue in the shadow of the rocks round Fair Head and under the island. If you have come up from the south, from Larne and Glenarm by that unique coast road, and over the mountain from Cushenden, this wide bay, facing the Arctic Ocean, must seem the most northerly point of the British Isles, another Land's End. It has an appearance of finality. As you look away past Rathlin and down the bay towards the Mull of Kintyre you know just what was meant in the line: " Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles, miles and miles." It is the end itself, the end of land with nothing beyond that silver horizon.
Correspondent on the choice of new cars should be accom- panied by a stamped and addressed envelope. The highest price payable must be given, as well as the type of body required. No advice can be given on the purchase, sale or exchange of used cars.]
Previous page
