How To Drive A Motorcar
A Key To The Subtleties Of Motoring

MECHANICAL FAILURES ON HILLS at the corner possessed of far more than ordinary commonsense, who, in the fraction of a moment, grasped the situation that the car was out of control, cleared the corner of people, and even managed to hustle out of the way a butcher ’s cart which was block- ing the comer at the only angle by which one could hope to get round and avoid being upset and having a bad accident. Thus, by a combination of good luck and skill (excuse the egoism), and a fairly well-judged angle for a high- speed turn on the corner, the immediate danger was successfully negotiated and the corner taken success- fully. Luckily there was a free passage along the road until such time as the car took it into its head to stop. Then, of course, came the examination, and the moral —which is the point of value so far as the readers are concerned. Well, the trouble—it was about the last car on which one would anticipate such a trouble—was that the uni- versal joint had come adrift and bodily fallen out on the hill, so that neither the engine nor the differential brake were of the slightest possible use, the side brakes (which were out of order) being the only means of checking the progress of the car. Now, luckily, this sort of thing happens bub rarely, but it does happen on occasion, and not infrequently one hears either of differential gears or bevel gears break- ing or of the shaft shearing, or some similar mechanical accident which absolutely brings the whole work of arresting the progress of the car on to the side brakes. The one lesson was enough in the writer’s case, and no car will he now drive unless satisfied as to the serviceable condition of the brakes, which act directly on to the road wheels. Mechanical Failures on Hills So muesli then for the care of the side brakes, but there now remains for consideration the question of how to act if one does find oneself seated at the wheel of a car which is out of control. At the actual moment of writing no fewer than three specific cases are under 67 E2