Motor Coach Traffic on Narrow Roads.
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WE WERE GLAD to see so. large an attendance at the meeting of motor coach proprietors convened at Olympia last week by the National Council of the Commercial Motor Users Association. The need for such a meeting was dealt with in these pages in our issue of September 7th, and the matters for discussion were then fully outlined.
It is necessary for motor coaching interests at once to prepare their arguments to lay before the Ministry of Transport, in order to meet and counter the representations of local authorities, at present pouring in upon the Ministry, in relation to motor coach traffic over the roads of 16 ft. width and under. The working classes are the third-class passengers of the road, and their vehicle is the motor coach. They have discovered a new privilege and an added pleasure in life ; they find that they now have access to the beauty spots of the country, and it is incontestable that, whilst some first-class passengers (the tourists „ by motorcars) may be losers by the fact, the country, as a whole, stands to gain. The beauty spots themselves should have a refining influence, which, eventually, should eliminate the vulgarities that are at present so evident.
With the growth of this traffic comes the need for making the roads to suit it; all efforts, therefore, should be directedto this end and not to the clo-sing of the narrow roads leading to the pleasure resorts. The motor coach proprietors, whilst asking for these improvements, are willing to discuss regulations for the control over these roads of the traffic for which they are responsible, and they are prepared to make proper provision for the receipt of signals from overtaking vehicles.
It is vital to the earnings of motor coaches that the control of the traffic on narrow roads be limited to the absolute minimum.
TheElimination of the Bad Driver.
THE taking in of signals from overtaking traffic and the better observance of the rule of the road to keep well to the left are matters which must in the future loom very large in connection with road traffic. .
Road traffic will grow in volume and in speed year by year-in volume because that is the natural course of development and is the way in which civilization is built up, and in speed because that is the readiest method of enabling the roads to carry the growing volume of traffic. With this increase in volume and speed, the 'obstructive driver will be less and less tolerated, until, in the end, he will be dealt with drastically. The time is rapidly approaching when a driver will be called upon, before he receives a licence to drive, to show that he has. well learned the rules and regulations controlling road traffic and that he has a well-developed road sense—even that he has the physique and temperament suitable for a driver.
The school of driving will not be the imperfect thing it is to-day.. It will, in all probability, deal less with mechanism ; it will certainly deal more with driving. That the training of the driver class can be well done is proved by the excellence of the driving of London's omnibuses. The driving of the L.G.O.C. buses is a model to all classes of traffic; it is skilful and considerate—a, credit to the men and a credit to the school.
The driving of pleasure cars is often bad, the driving of commercial goods and passenger vehicles is open to much improvement. Returning citywards from Olympia on top of a bus one evening along Knightsbridge, one of London' widest roads, we observed the amount of obstruction one vehicle can cause. Between kerb and central standards there is room for three lines of vehicles. Slow-moving and occasional stationary vehicles occupied one-third of the space. In front of our bus was a three ton lorry, being driven about 8 ft. farther out into the roadway than was necessary. Faster private vehicles passed the bus freely, and continually came up against the obstruction of the lorry, bringing them to a crawl, until a central standard was passed, when one, and perhaps two, could slip by; the others having to follow the lorry at its own pace until another opportunity occurred. During the short time it was under observation it obstructed 30 or 35 private vehicles a minute or so each, and caused that bunching,of fast vehicles which is always a danger. The driver required tuition in road manners ; that was the trouble. In the near future it will be possible to obtain a stock of cemplaint cards, with which,one can lodge with the police a, complaint against such a man (a form with blank spaces, simplifying the operation). The first complaint should produce a warning; the second a visit from an inspector ; the third a summons.; and the fourth the suspension, for a period, of his licence. It must be remembered that, even now, the bad driver is the source of innumerable accidents on the road, and unless road travel is to become a nightmare he must be eliminated.
Gratifying Results from the Show.
FOR SOME WEEKS, we might even say months, before the opening of the Commercial Vehicle Show at Olympia, there appeared to be a slight feeling of pessimism in the commercial vehicle trade, and reports received from various parts of the country showed that this feeling was widespread. The numbers of orders received by the many companies in the industry had certainly slackened off appreciably, and many began to think that the tide of prosperity in the trade had begun to turn.
The Commercial Motor has always decried the attempts of a certain seation of the daily Press to persuade its readers that a condition of slump was prevalent in the whole motor trade. Certainly, as we have already stated, not many orders were given for a few weeks prior to the Show, but the Show itself constituted one of the very reasons for this state of affairs. Buyers were not keen on purchasing new vehicles until they had seen what all the manufacturers had to offer. It is probable, also, that many expected the prices of commercial vehicles to fall considerably. Unfortunately, owing to the high cost of manufacture, this belief was hardly justified, except in one or two instances ; to reduce prices manufacturers would have to sell at a loss, which would have been an impossible or disastrous state of affairs.
We are glad to be able to state, however, that, as a direct result of the Show, considerable business has been. done ; in fact, satisfactory reports have been received from nearly all quarters. Those manufacturers of vehicles designed 'for municipal work, and of tractors, were particularly pleased with the results, and quite a number of motor coaches have been booked for next season. As regards lorries, the demand was not quite so brisk, and most of the business was done tn vehicles designed to carry comparatively small loads. With regard to steam vehicles, good business was done, as many people entertain fears regarding a further rise in the price of petrol, although these were, to a certain extent, alleviated by the recent slight reduction.
The Creation of Demand.
T . HE PRESIDENT of the Society of Motor 3.1anufacturers and Traders, Mr. A. S. Mays-Smith, was very flattering—and, moreover, sincere , about it—in his remarks at the official Show luncheon, concerning the,value of the :Press to the commercial metor industry. The Press is duly appreciative of the compliment, and is endeavouring to demonstrate that its greatest value is in, times of difficulty.
From time to time there occurs, in every manstry, a period when supply seems to have overtaken demand. Generally, it is termed a slump, and all sorts of reasons are advanced in explanation of it. Apparently, for the time being, the market has reached saturation point, and people are apt to look solely to external influences—those outside the industry—as the cause.
A fact that is often overlooked is that all demand, after a certain point (dependent on the class of industry), has to be created. That is to say, that in the present advanced stage of Civilization there is seldom a conscious need, amongst any wide section of the public, of a new development, so far as' manufactured articles are concerned. There is, in fact, hardly a commodity, manufactured or otherwise, which we can call to mind for which the demand would not dwindle immediately Were the effort to keep it alive and -to expand it relaxed for a moment. c6 Even in the case of milk, which is surely one of the most essential of all commodities, the necessity is recognized for educating the public continually in its use, because, even at the present time, the average consumption per bead of population in this country is below what is considered by medical authorities to be desirable. It will thus be seen that, even in the case of such a vital necessity as this, people will not buy, even as much as is good for them, unless induced to do so by powerful . . persuasion.
As with milk, so -with motor vehicles, only that,the need' for "powerful persuasion" is greater.
Were the Press, and the publicity men, to cease for one moment their campaign of educating the public in the use of motor transport, demand would inevitably drop to a point by comparison with which a " slump " would seem a "boom." The fact must be recognized that few people are instinctively progressive, and that it is only the influence of a minority of active members in the community which keeps the wheels of progress on the turn. The object of this dissertation is, of course, to emphasize the great importance of placing on record all new developments, all new applications all possible uses of motor transport, of every shape and form, simply for the purpose of educating the public, so that demand can be sustained and, where possible, increased. Never Was the need of intelligent propaganda greater than at the present time, and the Press, which is the medium by which it is chiefly spread, cannot properly fulfil its functions, unless fed. with all possible informationby the industry itself.
1922—The Fatal Year!'
IN THE Fuels Section of the Imperial Motor Transport Conference, held at Olympia, on Tuesday last, there was much serious discussion as to the outlook for the world's supply of motor spirit.
By " serious " we mean that there was a. general Oonsensas of opinion that what we may call the " natural " supplies would, before long, prove inade quate to the demands upon them, and that some new source of power must be developed. if mechanical transport is to continue and m.-ultiply.
One speaker, Admiral Philip Dumas, Secretary to the Royal Commission on Oil Fuel (1613), went so far as to express his conviction that there would be such a shortage of motor fuel by 1922, that the great majority of private users would have to put away their cars. This view of the case may not, at first presenta tion, appal the commercial user, because he is not, as such, interested in the outlook for the private user. The fact is, however, that if private use is crippled, commercial use must halt. 'Any future shortage of motor fuel will hurt all users. .
There is, however, no reason why the outlook should be regarded as. hopeless. As other speakers at the conference showed, there are plenty of potential motor fuels. The difficulty in utilizing them will be rather scientific than practical. In other words, stored energy is waiting in almost unlimited quantities: the difficulty lies in rendering it practically available. Hydrocarbons are abundantly provided by nature ; and every hydrocarbon is a potential source of energy. Benzole and alcohol are the two most obvious forms in which the hydrocarbon S can be utilized; but they ar8 only two of many. As "raw materials," the following substances were suggested by various speakers at the conference: Coal, shale, peat, abris from disused coalfields, rice straw, sugar, molasses, cactus, wild palm, lignite. The fact is that 'almost any vegetable growth—Vihether now ranking as a " mineral " or not—is a potential source of motor fuel. • . Use in the motor is largely a question of adaptation of the motor itself. It must be remembered that the motor itself is in its infancy. Hitherto, it has been constructed to-consume only oil products (petrol) or coal products (benzole). Alcohol, as a motor fuel, is well within sight range ; and alcohol can be manufactured from almost "any old.thing," of vegetable origin—even from potatoes and wood. The first step is to secure for alcohol greater freedom from official restrictions and control a really effective denaturant would lead to this. The next step is to modify the construction of the motor itself, so that it can run on the new fuel.
There is no reason to anticipate that the cost of such fuel would be prohibitive; indeed, there is every reason to believe that it would give cheap mileage. At all events, there is no ground whatever for the ill prophecy that the motor industry will be crippled for lack of fuel. We shall simply have to change our ways and means—and that not yet.