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

HOW TO DRIVE A MOTORCAR at once, as sooner or later the occasion will arise when the brake in question will be found from one cause or another not to be sufficient adequately to meet the circumstances, and then, if the other brake is not in proper condition, something undesirable is likely to occur. A Footnote About the Clutch Pedal This chapter on the question of the brakes and their operation is perhaps as suitable an opportunity as any other for dealing with another little matter which is rather a pet hobby of the writer’s, and which, so far as his observations have yet led him, does not seem to be a very common practice. Let us then incorporate this little foot-note on the idea. It may be remembered that when the pedal accelera- tor was first cast forth for the consideration of the motoring world, there was quite a general outcry against it. The opinion freely expressed was that it was ridiculous to expect one to be able accurately to control the movement of such a pedal with the foot, and furthermore that very few miles of such driving— even if one assumed it feasible—would make the foot mighty tired and give one the cramp. To be perfectly honest, the writer personally was one of the many who soliloquized thus. Yet to-day we see it as the most universally admitted practice on a car of any fitment about which there is a choice. Now, if it can so readily be done and the movement so well controlled, without, undue fatigue by so many drivers, why not extend the idea of continual foot- control to the clutch pedal? Many years ago the writer thought thus, and started to train the left leg and foot so as to become accus- tomed to spending something over 90 per cent, of the time when driving resting on the clutch pedal. Many admittedly expert drivers with whom the suggestion has been discussed have pooh-poohed it, but even so the writer still thinks that there is much to commend it. The reason, again, is our old friend previously alluded to, viz., the odd second, or even the fifth of a 72