The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-04-30


prolonged experience of driving in
the black
ANY man with an objection to
night driving should arrange to stop
and dine, prepare his lamps, smoke;
anything to waste little time during
this awkward half hour between
lights. He will find nothing to terri
fy him when he takes the road again
as soon as darkness has really fallen.
"A second error common among less
experienced night drivers is to hug
the side of the road and use its IL
Illuminated beading OF turf as steer
ing guide. This error has two bad eff.
fects. Sooner or later the car will
slide up to some conveyance or other
the color of which blends readily with
the roadway Its tail lights II any, will
be those tiny red glasses set in the
back Of the faint oil headlights, rem
dered invisible alike by position and
intrinsic poverty until the car is al
most upon them, when only Nigh
ty swerve can avert collision. If the
car IL held to the center of the road,
or even a trifle toward the offside. the
vehicle will be visible much earlier,
and even II II Is overlooked until
rather late quite minute swerve will
avail to clear 1t.
"This error also produces a second
unpleasantness. Many owners have
complained to me that they cannot
hold their cars straight at night. BY
day they can keep the cars nose on
a bee line, but by night they quaver
and corkscrew and are forever giving
little tugs and wrenches at the wheel
This sensation Is the product of short
focus steering. The eyes are trained
on some point too near to the car. 1t
may either be the fault of weak head
lights. allowing too brief range of
vision, or of steering by the nearside
road edge as illuminated by the side
lamps.
III driver takes notice when driv.
ing by daylight he will find he steers
by and toward a point well ahead of
the car and therefore steers straight.
He can only steer straight at night by
adopting the same plan. and conse-
Quently he should employ head lamps
light. not along the road edges lit on
ly by the side lamps
when 1t comes to nights gray with
fogs then truly has the automobilist
reached the limit of helplessness,
since 1t seems almost impossible to
make his lamps of any value at all
either to himself as road illuminants
or to others as warning of his ap-
proach. To see what might be done
have for some time been experiment.
ing with various devices and different
colored lights. Some of these expert
ments have proved hopeless failures
and need not be given here: others.
however. have proved more success
full and are outlined below.
II will first tell you of my exper-
fence with colors; the word penetra-
ton 10 hardly the right definition. but
rather what light is stopped the most
by the moist atmosphere. It is a
scientific fact that on wet day the
air Is much lighter than on dry one
In rifle shooting less elevation is re-
quired on the former than the latter
for on a bright sunny day the bullets
will travel much slower and lower
than when rain or fog is in evidence;
much the same Is experienced with ar.
tificial light. A good illustration is to
observe the colored lights in railway
signals, the white ana green ones are
practically useless at a distance when
they are compared with the red, not
only because the rays are impeded by
the glare in fog from the two former,
but the latter is seen and enables one
to see Mt much greater distance.
Referring to my experiments, a red
glass was put into an ordinary lamp
the halo was almost non-existent, but
the hight given off was somewhat con-
fusing, the road surface and grass
sides being only with great difficulty
distinguished. Then an orange lens
was substituted with marked improve
ment; steering was by far easier, the
sides of the Roadway, which was 20
feet wide. being quite clear and a con-
siderably increased range of vision d.
rectly In the line Of travel
1T seemed that with some lights a
bank of ethereal matter is thrown up
in the form of a glare close to the
light. thus effectively obstructing the
line of sight. Acting upon the photo
graphic dark room principle, double
glasses were tried, red and orange,
whereupon the absence OF showing up
ton PAINTED ON the WeathArheafen