Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-08-14

One finds considerable difficulty IN
regarding dispassionately the de-
moralizing influence upon city motor
ing OF the continued maraudlngs OF
drivers who deliberately set out upon
a campaign of parking place stealing.
| To the non-motorist and to those
who have not felt the heavy hand OF
this clique although there must be
but few OF the lattcr-the whole
thing might seem of but little conse-
quence and that the less said about
it the better.
However. such is not the case.
Nothing disgusts a motorlSt with
motoring more quickly than the I'M
fair tactics of those who so little re-
gard the rights of others that they
have no conjunction whatsoever in
sneaking into the parking space for
which the party of the first part may
have waited and Unanswered for, APP
| parently ad intinitum 1t is things
of this nature which do more to sour
a person on the gentle and pleasur-
able art of motoring than an in
opportune mechanical breakdown.
Such things CRATE sharply on the
nerves. and even in the most mild
hammered of folk they rouse a temp
tation toward physical combat,
1t probably is impossible to appeal
| to the better natures of such motor
lists, but an appeal based on the rea-
soning that the bitter yet will be Sc
verely bitten with the same kind of
teeth he has been utilizing may cause
him to ponder his petty, yet terribly
exasperating, misdemeanors.
eyes. this car is very fast-and
safe. too. For instance, we made
Baltimore yesterday in an hour"
How often has one heard this IA
miliar refrain, this one and its scores
of variations?
But does it mean anything? Very
little Why? Because no two per-
sons figure the distance from here to
Baltimore. or between any other two
points, in exactly the same way.
Did the man quoted above go from
his home in Mount Pleasant to his
friends home near Druid Hill Park
in an hour or did he go from the Dis
trict line to the Baltimore city line
in that time?
When the average motorist goes
from Washington to Baltimore in an
hour and quarter, which must be
considered good time, where is it
from and to where?
SO the next time that motorist
with good car and an overly am
bilious but not especially scrupulous
speedometer mentions that he made
it from here to the Monumental City
in 491z minutes, it might be we'll to
ask him about his points of contact
in each community. That may shed
some light on the subject.
Some of the ways of testing auto
mobiles on proving grounds are i'm
presslve because of their great SIM
plicity. For instance, in order to as
certain whether dust would have any
unfavorable effect upon a new type
of engine, car carrying this engine
was made to run behind another ma
chine for an entire day over a fairly |
dusty road.
In another case it was desired to
operate the engine at top speed, but
conditions were such that it was not
possible to run the car with safety
at the rate at which the engine was
capable of conveying it. This prob
lem was simple one for the engi-
neers. They merely changed the
gear reduction in the rear axle, with
the result that the engine had to re-
volve great deal faster for any
given car speed. AT a speed of the
car corresponding to from so to s.
miles an hour, it was possible to OPP
crate the engine at its very peak
speed.
The handling of traffic at Fifteenth
street and New York avenue, while
not perfect, remains an outstanding
example of the increasing efficiency
of Washington's traffic squad. There
is no need to emphasize the difficulty
OF conditions at that intersection.
Every motorist and every pedestrian
knows that it is perhaps the worst
one in the entire city Therefore, the
smoothness with which traffic is be-
ing dispatched through it and the
minimum number of accidents there
is very real and definite credit to
the men at that post And it should
be added one notes considerable i'm
provement throughout Washington
as a whole in the manner in which
the vehicular stream is being han
died. At length this phase of the
traffic situation is giving justification
for genuine satisfaction. =.
Il X *
Some wonderful strides are being
made III silencing new motors. One
of them is SO quiet at IS to 40 miles
an hour that it is possible to hear
the valve mechanism of the vacuum
tank operating.
This seems uncomfortable. but it is
an actual fact that in one of the new
| models just put on the market the
noise from the vacuum tank is so
pronounced and frequent enough to
attract notice from the prospective
purchaser. Some prospects have
complained and do not seem to be
satisfied when they are told that the
cause OF the noise is so trivial as to
mean nothing at ALL
| When engineers are trying to take
the clicks out of vacuum tanks, we
are reaching state of perfection.
| Perhaps by 1923 they'll be looking
for the noises in the needle valve of
the carburetor.
x X x x
One Of the most interesting Incl
| dents of present manufacturing
trends is the appearance on the
! streets within the last few weeks of
a certain popular car bearing exactly
the same color scheme that was