The Growing Cali for Emergency Brakes.
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T IS STILL extremely difficult for a vehicle owner or fleet manager to say where wise precautions
end and extremes are approached in the-matter of safeguarding vehicles, goods or passengers and third parties against mishap. Accidents occur so rarely (taking into consideration the enormous annual mileage of road transport vehicles) that it is only one owner or manager here and there who could truthfully say that he has had a lesson and has learned it. . Have we not been taught that it is the singed child who shuns the fire ? Those of us who survey, the whole field of road transport, however, are compelled to admit that there is yet a great deal to be done to make the heavy road vehicle safe in all circumstances and, certainly, a great deal more is required in order to overcome the weaknesses of hurnan nature as displayed even by that extremely skilful and considerate road user, the commercial
vehicle driver;--taking his class as a whole. •
We believe that much will yet be done in the way of equipping heavy vehicles with brakes which shall be reasonably eel-Lain to arrest a runaway, whether it be travelling forward or getting out of hand backward. The sprag has been a grossly neglected feature of commercial vehicle equipment;' it was so defective, so unreliable, and in. fact so liable in itself to be a cause of trouble, that it fell into disrepute in the war area, and the Army depots carried many thousands of snrags that had been removed from service vehicles. Had the sprag been developed as a, smooth-acting emergency brake, a diff6ent tale could be told.
It is true that steep gradients and dangerous bends are being modified all over the country, but, unfortunately, this happy' state of affair cannot, to any extent, be carried into the towns and cities which, because of their contiguity to rivers, are often burdened with na.rrew, steep and winding streets, so that the dangers of the most congested places are the hardeat to remedy. Within a, few months, for instance, a,. busy and narrow road junction at the foot of a hill in a Certain Lancashire town has been the scene of three really bad accidents through control being lost over Vehicles driven by men strange to the place.
With the development of mechanical road transport the journeys' of road vehicles are being gre.atly extended, and a driver of a coach or goods vehicle to-day is expected to range almost from Land's End to John o'-Groat's. He is thus always liable to find
• himself in awkward situations, such as will come B15 readily fo the minds of those who have traversed the roads of this country, and let'it also be remembered'that practically every commercial motor driver is but poorly supplied with maps, the usual guide supplied to him being a small-scale map which shows the roads as being wide and straight between towns and through them.
The use of emergency brakes must grow. They must be easy to operate and, like the one described in this. issue, should be applied by the movement of the vehicle itself, so that the greater the speed endency the greater the restraining influence.
The Pioneer's Everlasting Grievance.
WE are reminded by the receipt of a letter now lying on our desk that we have, since the war, often been asked whether theresis any redress for competition—any means of .stopping a competitor from coming on to the ground and taking advantage of a demand that has been built up and adequately catered for by the complainant. We are always compelled to reply that competition is the salt of life, that it is not discouraged in this country, and that a bus proprietor': who. has established a, service and secured, we will say, by his own industry a profitable source of revenue by his development along a certain route, has no prescriptive solo right to the route and cannot secure any official help to. prevent a competitor duplicating his service. It is, to doubt, hard and in a measure unfair, but it occurs in every kind of business and has been the source of considerable aggravation and annoyance since man began to trade with his fellow-creatures. The letter which awakened these ideas tells of a bus service in Wales run to a time-table for a long period; resulting in the development of a demand for the service. Latterly, competitors have placed opposition vehicles on the same routes, running them five minutes ahead of the established services and sometimessiusing buses of the same colour as those With which the public had become familiar.
Action can only lie with the local licensing authorities: if it can be shown to them that the service is already adequate for the demand, they may be persuaded to refuse further licence; although this course would probably result in an appeal to the Minister of Transport, followed by an inquiry and a suggestion that a compromise is desirable—for it is very difficult to decide upon the Merits of such a case.
There is always one consolation. The provision of traffic facilities creates traffic, and the more buses placed (within reason) on a route the greater becomes the willingness of people to travel by them and to make journeys they, otherwise, would have avoided or not even thought about. Give efficient service, provide comfortable vehicles, and show consideration to the public, and ,the opening for a competitor to creep insis.igreatly :narrowed. Otherwise there is a chance that the newcomer will give the public what it wants and the pioneer may even be ousted from the field!
The Need for Protecting Trailer Drawbars.
WITH THE large increase in the use of trailers, the need for rendering these safe in operation is becoming even more apparent than. formerly.
We refer in this particular instance, not so much to the risk of accident to the vehicle and trailer themselves, as to the danger incurred through unruly children attempting to obtain free rides on the drawbars. Hanging on the tail of a cart has always proved an irresistible temptation to the younger members of the public, and, in the case of a wagon and trailer, the driver cannot adopt the procedure of "whip behind," which proves an effective deterrent with the older form of transport. Unfortunately the extreme danger of riding on the drawbar or running between a vehicle and its trailer is not realized, and it is very doubtful, even if it were, whether the practice Gould be stopped, as youth is proverbially regardless of danger. . It, therefore, behoves the owners of vehicles which draw trailers to do all that they can to make their vehicles safe.
Expanding trellis work gates or guards have been used to a limited extent, but not with very satisfactory results. The protectionnecessary is not very much ; 'it is merely a question of preventing anyone from obtaining access to the drawbar, or leaving it, while the vehicle is in motion. It should not be a very difficult matter to evolve a satisfactory form of guard, and we commend this to the practical designer as a field which might well benefit by his endeavours.