PARIS SPLASHGUARD TRIALS. 500 ENTRIES.
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As the result of an order from the Paris Municipal Council, the General Omnibus Co., of Paris, is at present carrying out a test of splashguards suitable for attachment to its buses. The announcement of this competition brought forth more than 300 projects. These were examined by the omnibus en
gineers, and the most promising appliances were called up for a practical test. This consisted of the now classical procedure of sending the buses fitted with the guards over a specially prepared mud track, with white canvas boards divided into squares on each side. To provide the best means of comparison, a photograph was taken of each board just after the passage of the bus.
As the outcome of this test, eight splashguards were selected as lit for further consideration, and these are now 'undergoing tests at the company's expense on buses running on the Porte St. Martin to Grenelle route. Twenty others were considered fairly satisfactory and the company undertook to give them a practical test at the inventors' expense,. These practical tests will be carried out to the end of the present month. During the month of June in Paris. a splashguard has very little opportunity of proving its worth as ark anti-splasher. These trials are thus a demonstration of the ability or otherwise of the guards to remain in position during ordinary city service, when they will have to be brought in contact with kerbstones, roughly-paved streets, and other vehicles. Lee in London, from November to February, would he a test.
Very little that is new has been developed as the result of these trials. The guards can be divided into two distinct classes: spIashers hanging from the hub cap, with various devices for preventing them swinging, and circular rubber, canvas, or fibre guards mounted on a rim of the same diameter as the wheel, and secured toçi this latter.