Evening star., 1952-11-02
Travellers Notebook
Notes and Rental Cars Are Florida Features
By Jacques FutreIle. Jr.
The Stor's Travel Editor

Travsl Editor
lally lined the main highways. For
instance. they stretch along the
shore off Florida highway Ala
for mile after mile.
The other development is the
growing business of making auto
mobiles available to those vaca-
TONERS who, for one reason or
another, prefer to make the trip
by plane. train or bus.
$40 q Week
A couple of weeks ago. the Note
book mentioned car hire in con-
nection with the estimate that
about 80 per cent Of Florida's va
cationers would drive their own
cars there and have them avail
able for sightseeing and moving
on to other resort areas. Since
then, some impressive figures have
been gathered to show the feasi-
bility of leaving ones own auto
at home and still not be chained
to timetables.
H. Earl Smalley, an official of
one of the Miami area car-renting
companies, is authority for the
statement that more than Is per
cent of the car-hire business is
|centered in Southern Florida: that
there are more than 5000 such
cars available for the section south
of Palm Beach.
Whereas a few years ago the
average cost of hiring a car in
the Miami area was about SIS a.
week, present-day rentals are IN
the $4O-a-week bracket.
The Washington to : Florida
traveller can have a car waiting
for him at the Miami airport or
the railroad station by requesting
one when he buys his ticket. It's
as easy as that, saving letter writ
ing and telegram expense. Eastern
and National Airlines and Sea-
board and Atlantic Coast Line
Railroads have reservation|
system worked out with Hertz.
Avis or other car-rental compa-
nies in various Florida cities.
Six Doys Of Driving
From Washington, Miami
Beach is about 1,150 miles away.
Motorists driving 400 miles a day
and that's 10 hours of 40-miles-
Iper-hour driving-chop three days
each way off their allotted vaca-
ton: unless. of course, driving in
itself is recreation. That's where
age and stamina figure in.
II several people are in the mo-
toring party, the cost of motor
ing southwark is spread thinner.
While phone call to bus COM
pany. a railroad Office or a plane
line gives the prospective vaca-
toner a precise fare for ticket,
the average motorist really doesn't
know what his automobile vaga-
bonding costs.
$50 q Round Trip
Sometime ago, a Chicago cost
accounting firm made available
to the American Automobile As
sociation the results Of study
to determine a fair formula for
companies to compensate en-
ployes using their personal cars
on company business. It was re-
checked only last summer and
the formula still holds. In brief,
here it is:
For each day the car is devoted
to company business, $1.50 is paid.
On top of this is added 3ha cents
per mile Travelled. The $1.50
takes care of insurance. repairs.
depreciation and such. The 3h
cents a mile is for gas. oil and
tires. Under that formula, it
would cost a few dollars less than
$50 to drive from here to Miami
Beach and back.
The railroads and the airlines
have an answer for that relatively
cheap transportation. Naturally,
they carry vacationers in a wealth
range to whom cost is immaterial.
But much of their business comes
from salaried persons whose an
nual vacations, summer and win
ter, can total no more than three
or four weeks. Winter vacation
time, if any is left, might average
(See NOTEBOOK, Page B-21)