The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-02-21
E. Fl. DILLON & CO.

gSpcy save time, money, even life. Furthermore. one can hardly De good judge of another persons dr1v- ing unless one drives oneself. It
 may be easy enough for any passen. driving--to know whether the driver slows up sufficiently on turns, keeps to the right of the road and shows in his use of the brake consideration for his tires. But there are other points much finer which one must
 i'd roadcraft of the skilled chauffeur
 compares favorably to my way or
 thinking with the skilled woodcraft
 of the old-tRe trapper. The chauf- feur must note his signs more quickly
 and always while doing other things. He feels the road through his wheels
 as the l1orseman feels his horses
 spirit through the reins. In skid
 he knows instinctively the move to
 make because he has deliberately
 meeting it, as every driver should
 His sense of touch his hearing and his
 sight are all alert, combining to
 create an effect like second sight.
 He will appear familiar with the
 roads that he has never before tray-
 eled to know in advance the sharp
 ness of curves and the abruptness or
 hills that he has never seen. He
 will even seem to know when another
 vehicle is coming from around cor
 ner Perhaps a little cloud of dust
 above the trees that no one else has
 ways thinks there is another vehicle and he always ought to. The road
 has it's signs, visible to him. invisible
 to others. For example. certain
 kinds. of automobile, tracks indicate
 certain conditions to be expected. The tracks leading into a curve ahead in form him of its pitch. Crudely speaking the sharper the turn the further the automobile tracks swing to the outside before reaching the
 cut over the inside in the actual rounding of it A very deep rut at the extreme inside of turn often indicates that a hill must be ascend ed just beyond. The rut was made
 by matorists familiar with the road
 who make the turn at speed to keep
 momentum or the hill. A good driv-
 CT may make certain turns with safe-
 ty yet with greater speek than those
 who do not drive might think was
 safe. Also. loose driving on a turn
 will injure tires infinitely more than
 These signs are of the simplest and
 like the signs of the zodiac they are influenced by other signs.
 But night or day the chauffeur
 must not rely too much upon these
 indications. Every now and then
 mine with a nty-five-horsepower
 car and a chauffeur who loved to burn up the road had a good leg bro- ken by jumping to conclusions. Tn
 pitch of it by the position of a glimpse of road beyond. But though this road looked like a continuation
 of that which they were travelling it proved to be another one entirely.
 This they discovered after the car
 rolled over. And my friends found that his leg. though very strong. had
 not sufficient power to keep a heavy touring car right side up. So the
 ear went back to the factory on a flat
 car and my friend went to the hos pital in an ambulance.
 The friend of whom I speak has a new car and a new accident almost every year, and each is greater than the last Nevertheless he remains absolutely fearless. Too much fear
 in motoring is better than too little. If I were asked to pick a quality
 most necessary to a family driver I would say imagination. Lack of i'm agination is a quality for race driv : CTS only. The good chauffeur must be able to imagine other motors dash the curve ahead, to imagine women
 and children in the covered carriage
 wobbling here and there about the road, to imagine their pulling the wrong rein and turning into him as he goes past to imagine a delivery boy jumping from the wagon just in time to fall beneath the car. He must be able to imagine what may happen if a tire blows out on a curve at too high speed or catches in a muddy street car track, or if the trolley car he is
 following should break the wire over head and let the loose end drop into the car. He must imagine people rum ming suddenly in front of him from behind every street car, motor car and carriage. He must have enough imagination never to allow careless users of the road to make him care- less no matter what the circufnstan-
 ces or the temptation, never to pass
 upon the wrong side of any vehicle, never to deviate from the simple rules of the road or so far as lies in his power to let others deviate. In fine he must be a sort of cool, imaginative pessimist in regard to what Mark Twain called ''the damned human race" He must roll through the world upon his leather-upholstered as-driven throne, looking down like a plying god upon mankind and be- lievfng in his heart or his imagina- i tion that mankind is made up of the
 lame, the halt, the blind, the drunk,
 the imbecile, the suicide.