Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-07-17

So much has been said and written
about the art of ascending and de-
scending hills safely and efficiently
with an automobile that the average
| motorist has come to assume driving
| on the level to he a matter OF second
nature. But hills are not everything.
| Driving on the level has its prob
| lens, too. The process of conducting
| n car over straight, level course APP
| pears to he the simplest part of mo-
| toring That is why it is one Of the
most difficult.
| The motorist Is thrown off his guard
| because the results of poor driving on
! the level are cumulative. He can
| make wide assortment Of mistakes
and pay no particular penalty at the
time. Later, however, he must face
| the consequences.
This is the reverse Of incompetent
hill driving. If a driver does not
know that he can get back into gear
again when racing down a hill by
speeding up the engine while the
gears are in neutral he may go crash
ing to his doom. A mistake is imme-
diately evident on hills. but on the
level the driver often waits for months
before discovering his errors. FIRE.
quently the interval between mistake
and consequence is so long he never
even gets the connection.
Just Ambling Along.
1t is not an uncommon thing to
see a. driver just ambling along with
the universal joints torn between the
power impulses of the slow running
engine and the overrunning action
Of the rear wheels as they are pow
cred by the cars own momentum.
Under such circumstances. the uni
versal joints virtually are floating.
but not without being bounced
rather roughly. 1t is true that this
sort Of thing can be INDUCED In by
the absent minded driver without
anything happening" at the moment.
Time, however, tells. Later, there
comes a repair bill to cover the work
of installing new uniyersals.
Many accidents are due to inatten-
ton as result of easy driving" The
motorist feels that because the car is
on the level and he is not stepping on
the gas. he does not have TO pay SO
much attention to the road ahead. The
same type of inattention causes him
to overlook the warnings flashed by
the meters and gauges on the instru-
ment board.
When car is running slowly. the in
dicator of the ammeter tends to flicker
from charge" TO discharge" as the
generator cut-out points close and
break. The driver may happen to no.
tiCe the indicator wavering, but feels
that it is the thing to expect. For all
he knows. however, the engine may be
misfring.
Might Make Discovery.
If the ammeter did anything but
show steady discharge while the car
is racing uphill. the driver would
know that there was something
wrong On the level. at low speeds. ne
takes Pickering of the indicator as
normal. The upshot of it is that he
| may be paving the way for a lot of
| trouble.
Even if the mUtorist is in the habit
of travelling at a lively pace over tho
level stretches. a specific set of rules
is required for skillful driving. One
of the most difficult things to impress
upon a driver is that traction is not
as good on the level as it is when
travelling uphill. On hill a car will
tend to go straight ahead. on a level
plane, the effect of which is the same
as increasing its weight and it's trac-
ton. That is why it is safer to drive
fast over rough road uphill than on
the level.