"These Precious Justices"
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THERE are indications that the strong fight by The Commercial Motor against the injustices to which all classes of user of motor vehicles, particularly those . employing or driving commercial types, are subjected is succeeding. Important daily and evening newspapers often refer to the matter, and, only a few days ago, the Old Street magistrate, in• a case concerning a lorry driver, alluded to "these precious justices."
The driver in question had been fined £2 at Welwyn for exceeding the speed limit, and this was his first offence. On the occasion of the remark by the magistrate, he was before the court on a charge of stealing nine bags of beans at Spitalfields Market, from the proceeds of which he said that he hoped to pay the fine. He was discharged under the Probation Act, and, in adopting this procedure, the magistrate said that it seemed to him a scandalous thing to fine a working man so heavily for a first offence; it was a ridiculous amount. If £2 be considered ridiculous, we could point to many other fines even more severe.
The Home Office to Take Action.
We understand that the Home Office is shortly to issue a circular to the Benches of this country on the need for more uniformity in connection with offences concerning the employment of motor vehicles. At present there is an extraordinary lack of consistency in the amounts imposed for the same class of offence in different courts. The fine may be anything from 7s. 6d. to £3 for a speedlimit offence, and some magistrates have stated publicly that this high limit may be considerably raised.
In the commercial sphere of road transport, the average driver covers probably from three to six times the mileage run by the ordinary private driver ; in fact, he spends most of his working day on the r o a d. Consequently, the opportunities of being trapped are multiplied to the same degree, whilst the individual concerned usually has far more difficulty in finding the amounts required.
It would, of course, be impossible to grade fines exactly fo suit the purse of each offender, but there should be some degree of balance, because to mulct a man of his Whole wages for a week or longer, when he probably has a wife and family to keep, is not only a grave hardship, but, as in the instance given above, is liable to encourage the adoption of desperate means for obtaining the Money.
Drivers Treated Worse Than Criminals.
It is a curious position when a shoplifter, or other person who has given way to criminal activities, can frequently be discharged under the Probation Act whilst, normally, a first motoring offence results in,a. penalty. It would appear that a driver who offends is considered as being worse than the ordinary criminal, yet officials and important members of the public are constantly remarking upon the careful driving and consideration of the average man in charge of the commercial vehicle.
We have also previously emphasized the drastic nature of the penalty of suspending a licence where this action is taken against a driver whose sole means for livelihood depends upon his ability to drive. The owner of a private car in similar circumstances (unless he be a commercial traveller) can often arrange for a friend to drive him on pleasure jaunts, but the business driver invariably loses his job and joins the army of unemployed. Such a prospect is unnerving—a fact which, in itself, may prove a danger. The Question of Defective ,Tyres WHAT, in our opinion, constitutes a gross miscarriage of justice recently occurred when the driver of a heavy lorry was fined by the Doncaster magistrates for using his vehicle with a defective tyre. Evidence given by two police patrols was to the effect that one front tyre had a cut extending for a considerable length along its wall, and it was stated that this was in a particularly dangerous position, because it was at the point of maximum pressure. We had no idea—although we know something of the principles of pneumatics—that the air pressure in a tyre could vary in different places. Apart from this, an expert from the tyre manufacturer, giving evidence for the defence, said that the tyre was not cut, but had been damaged through rubbing against the kerb, and as a result of this chafing some of the rubber had worn off, although no part of the casing had been damaged. The strength of a tyre is essentially in its casing, the rubber constituting merely the part which takes the wear and, at the sides, forms a protective layer for the carcass.
Tyres built for high-speed racing, such as those employed by Sir Malcolm Campbell in obtaining the world's record for speed, are constructed with practically no rubber at the sides and remarkably little on the treads, as any considerable weight would cause the rubber to be flung off by centrifugal force. Yet no one could criticize such tyres as constituting a danger. Many uninformed people are also liable to consider. that a tyre is likely to burst because the tread has worn down until fabric appears. Actually, this first appearance is that of what is known as the breaker strip, and there is a further layer of rubber between this and the casing proper. Consequently, whilst the tread pattern may have vanished, the tyre itself is not really in a dangerous state, and with a good non-skid road surface could safely be used for a further considerable period. Tests to which we drew attention recently in a leading article have shown that when running on a proper surface there is but little difference between a patterned and a smooth tread in respect of road adhesion and consequent resistance to slip. Possibilities of High-power Fuels rEW people outside the air-transport .industry realize the extent to which fuels are " doped '' for aviation work, particularly in the case of military machines. Petrols giving extraordinary power are in process of development, and fuels with octane numbers up to 100 are in use, whilst engineers are speaking of the possibility of 120 octane. With these high-power petrols specially designed engines are usually necessary and, as an example of the output obtained, this can be increased from 15 per cent. to 30 per cent, by raising the octane number from 92 to 100. With another addition of eight in the octane number, . the power increase per unit of weight might well be over 331 per cent., whilst the fuel consumption, even with 100 octane, can be as low as 0.34 lb. • per b.h.p.-hour.. Hitherto as much as 6 c.c. of tetra-ethyl lead has been used to bring up the number to 92, but corrosion is said to have counterbalanced the advantages of the higher compression ratios then rendered possible. The figure can now be raised to over 100 by employing a maximum of 3 c.c. of dope. With such fuels, the important factor is one of high cost, some of those at present on the market being priced as high as 10s. per gallon, but, as with other developments, the price is steadily decreasing. The main reason for this is that the production of suitable materials, which may be referred to as "blending agents," is being increased arid cheapened, whilst research into the possibilities of new materials for this purpose is being carried on in many parts of the world. It is believed in Arnerica that these improved fuels will soon be adopted for commercial aviation and, if progress continues, they may be produced on a basis sufficiently economic for use in private cars. Whether it will be possible to carry this procedure into the realm of commercial road transport is a matter of considerable doubt and, in any case, could not be effected for a long time. The movement shows, however, that the possibilities of the petrol engine are by no means exhausted.