The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-09
EASY ID LEARN HOW
 ID RUN AUTO CAR
Small Amount of Mechanical
 Skill Required
PATIENCE IS NECESSARY
Many Business Men Shirk Responsi. bility of Running a Machine Through Mistaken Idea
 of Difficulties.
2 rom the New York Sun.

From the New York Sun.
 Many a business man who does prac-
 tically all his daily work at a desk in a
 stuffy office might be enjoying the benefits 1 of automobiling were it not that he
 doubts his own ability to learn how to
 run machine himself and does not care l to be bothered with q professional chauf- 1 feur. Beyond any question the greater ma- l jority of this class of men would be able l to master most any modern light tour
 ing car after a few lessons from some one who thoroughly understood the machine. | An experienced motorist who has run his
 own cars for several years, beginning
 when automobiles were far more compli- cated pieces of mechanism than most American cars are at present. was asked 1 to give his opinion as to how much me- chanica1 skill is required to run an auto
 mobile without the constant presence of
 chauffeur.
 Well, that is rather a hard question to
 answer as it is so involved in other prob lems,'' was the reply. "It depends very 1 largely upon the make of the automobile
 and, to a certain extent, upon the good l fortune of the owner of the car. This l latter statement may seem strange to the
 unintiated, but tine longer a motorists s | experience the more firmly does he be- | come convinced that some men are hoo- l dooed and might as well make up their 1 minds never to attempt to run car. However, I think know what you mean. and that is whether or not the ordinary
 mortal not the mechanical expert, can keep friends with his automobile and his temper at the same time. 1 have heard
 men say they are never going to buy motor car, because they stand in mortal dread of getting stuck somewhere in the wilds with it. They will tell you that it they are out driving horse and the har-
 ness breaks they know enough to patch it up with piece of string, but they will grow visibly nervous at the mere sugges- ton of a tire shoe or a carbureter. Easy to Learn.
 My experience has taught me to think that any man of reasonable brains, who
 has the slightest leaning toward mechani
 cal devices, and who has the patience nec-
 essary to deal with an inanimate machine when it goes wrong, can be taught to run an automobile with such degree of suc- cess that he will derive infinite pleasure from 1t. Take, for example, the case of my friend who is sure of his capabilities l in fixing a harness. He is just the sort | of material I should like to have to begin | on if I were teaching a novice to run a l car. If he has self-reliance enought to fix l the harness then he has sense enough, | in all probability, to learn how to run q
 motor car. Why is it that he knows how to fix the harness? Simply because that | sort of repairing is the only kind he has I ever been called upon to do If he can i handle a iackknife and piece of string | ingeniously, then he should be able to | handle more complicated pieces of me l chanism.
 Simply because in the beginning the novice does not know the difference be- l tween a commutator and a spark plug is no reason why he should not learn how ] to mend a puncture on the road or do | the minor repairing to his car It is prin- 1 cipally common sense that is needed to run an automobile. A little ingenuity s of course, also a requisite, but men who have any fondness at all for handling l tools and machinery. as l find most men have, will in the great maority of cases manage to keep frineds with their cars It is very important thing, this making friends with one's car. Usually the driver who lacks patience with a horse when something ails 1t will display a similar amount of temper when something gets slightly out of place on his car. and there by hangs his woe. A motorist must re- member that nine times out of ten when something goes wrong with the machine it is due to some carelessness of his own in not making a needed adjustment When the motorist realizes this and stops ger ting mad at the car every time something turns up to annoy him, I think that he will find no serious difficulty.
 No Use for Chauffeur.
 Tn all the experience I have had, have never found case where man who had ordinary common sense and little mechanical skill failed to get along well. The constant association with things mc- chanical leads to degree of skill in the manipulation of tools that sometimes as tonishes the novice, and he is apt to say when he sees his motorist friend tinker ing with his car that he is not so skilled and will not make a success of keeping a car, while the fact is that his friend was no more skilled than he six months previous Don't hesitate to get auto mobile because you think you have not the ability to care for it. provided you like machinery and can eep your tenn per-
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