1928-10-13 — Page 7

Wasting Water,

MOTORING

CURRENT

COMMENT

SUPPLEMENT

prehensive plan is, of course, hardly necessary for Hongkong, but never- We have previously drawn theless, the aspect of teaching chil attention to the Colony's worst dren the meaning of driving signals, stretch of road-along the Praya and inculcating the urgent need for from Wing Lok Street to Whity the exercise of caution, is ex- Street--and make no apology for tremely desirable, and we trust that referring to it again. Not only it will be possible to take steps in the road surface in a most dithis direction.

graceful condition, but a quagmire Special Permits. is duveloping at the Praya end, of

Eastern Street as the result of à | The question of issuing spiceinl leaking water pipe, This permite granting the right to

leakage has been going on for certain owners of motor-cars to many weeka now, and in view of use thoroughfares otherwise closed the water shortage, it is extremely to traffic, was also discussed by' surprising that a system of inspec- the Unofficials, and in the mars, tion is not practised. The Aber wo must agree with their remarks, deen motor buses start out from at the name time, there can be no this particular corner, and the objection to granting such permits "elTect of such heavy vehicles, plus for districts where the exercise of that of heavily inden coolle trucks,aution eliminates danger. It mast has created a very good substitute ba remembered that the modern for a duck-pond, from which valu-motor car is efficiently equippeal ablo water trickles merrily away 1 braking power, at tint across the road to the gutter. In there are but few hill which carr the meantime notfees are sund But be safely negotiated providing advising hours of issue of water to the driver exercises every .nearby native residents. These notes are, however, restricted to moloring matters, and it is this aspect of the question which prompts us to urge that a respon- sille official visits the scene imme- diately.

New Ronds.

CAT

Rather than, inflict any hardship

4 local motorist by refusing sur permission, we would suggest that applicants he required to drive over the route suggested, accompanied by an officint of the True Department, who could for his oninions on the capabilities of the driver as well

as the desiralality or otherwise of the Th

comment by the Unofficial Fronte being used by motor vehicles. members relating to proposed aw

Va far as possible, bucal motorista motor runda on the Peak drew at should be given every facility, teating to the fact that the pro-especially when the inaccessibility urinol Mid-Level, motor road vef some of Hongkong's homes is maing but a somewhat vaque, hope taken into account

for the residents when it would

Krently beneft. The Exothrial at Praya Reclamation.

titude of objecting to a motor mod

to Mountain Lodge was ceriamly!

We notice that same excellent logical, for it might almost he roads of ample width are being grals) built on the new reclamation, and nasled (on that, the unfortunate dwellers of When completed, they will be a It will be the mid-regions were to lar depived redit la the Colony,

ouncil

Carnivals,

of their roud owing to heavy quite a novelty to have "four- expenditures being incurred pise osa" ronds auch as are being

laid down, and It is where on the Peak Opening up

mosl gratifying to see that the wise the Perk District generally E motor traffic is enginestly desirable policy has been adopted of allow- and it cannot be denied that thing for future moter trafic. Mid-Level area is in urgent aerd of a motor foroughfare. The proposid road to Mountain Lalge

The number of ears entered for. would also serve a most 1sofal pur

the decorated and illuminated pore, but in view of the pixilpon. ing of the work lower down the motor car parade in connexion Peak the erriana imbression with the recent Tattoo, while not evented that the higher thorough large, was sufficient to ensure the faw is more wrrently nowest teeess of the event. Some ex opening up any district. to moter tremely good effects were obtain traffic, the question of serving the ed, the quality of the various de wentest number of people shoulcorating schemes being of a high be considered, and taken on this order. It has previously been hnais, Wo imagine that the Mid suggested that an annual decorut! Lavels would present a very muesed motor car carnival might be stronger claim.

Teach the Children.

held, and judging from the excel- lent, effect obtained at the Tattoo parade, the suggestion sounds Such an event most attractive. Since our comment last week on might well be held in conjunction the question of impressing on with the HK.A.A. annual dinner. children the need to exercise cau dance, which might then become! tion when crossing streets, and the

Pedder a fancy dress affair. desirability of special lectures be-Street could be closed for a few ing given

schools, in local

hours to allow the parade to pass, our attention .has been when the judges would be able to drawn a nationwide plan make their awards for distribu- which is being adopted in the ion to the winners during the United States. The subject has chance. Such an event would not been given the name "motorology," and it is to take its place among only prove a pleasant diversion, to local motorists, but would also the regular studies in schools.

largo ¤

crowd of this instance an extremely wide attract field is covered, instruction being spectatora.

to

IT

given in the mechanics of motoring New Members. as well as road law. The follow-

ing extract sums up the scheme.

OF

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH

SATURDAY, 13th OCTOBER,

Belog The Official Organ of

1928..

THE HONGKONG automobile aSSOCIATION.

| DECORATED CARS IN HONGKONG.|

The "Empire" Car, entered by the H.K.A.A.

Mr. P. Sands' machine made an excellent flying fish.

Socony's clever "Filling Station" ezhibit. The Decorated Motor Car Parade, organised by the Hong- kong Automobile Association in connexion with the recent Tattoo,. demonstrated that local motorists are not lacking in originality and enterprise.

HARD GOING.

"The Road to Mandalay."

FORTY YEARS AGO.

Story of Pneumatic Tyre's Birth.

It is exactly forty years ago since Jolin Boyd Dunlop applied for the patent for the first pneumatic tyre. He had just re- tired from his velerinary practico' in Belfast, the largest one in

twelvo Ireland, where

horнe- shoera worked for him.

While a boy at school in the village of Dreghorn, Ayrshire, bis native place, Dunlop had observed that a large wooden roller was easier to pull than a smaller one, because, as it had a larger aron of surface bearing on the ground, the pressure on cael unit of urea being less.

For years he thought on the Iden of wheels with flexible rims that would Antten out and so increase the area of contact with the road. It was a complaint from his small son Johnny, then nine years of age, which actually materialised In the first rubber tyres to be filled with air. Jolinay had grumbled about the difficulty of riding on thin solid tyres over the uneven stone setts of Belfast'a streets.

His father thereupon made two air tubes from sheet rubber one thirty-second of an inch thick; fixed them to a wooden dise with a thin strip of linen and blew them up with a football pump, The tyres were then fitted to a tricycle made by Dunlop from American elm to his own design with special- ly shaped rims. The whole was completed one night at ten o'clock and so eager were both father and con to test the new device that the boy went out for a run in the moonlight and returned, trium- phant at midnight.

Whon a racing cyclist who was shown the novelty expressed his doubts about it the inventor chal- Jonged him to a race on his thin olid tyres against the nine-year- old boy on the home-made tricycle | equipped with pneumatics. It was the first of the unending tale of races to, be won on Dunlops. Al- though John Boyd Dunlop revolu- tlonised cycling and made motor cars possible he himself could not at that time ride a bicycle; in- deed there is no record that he ever rade one all his life.

The Latest 1929 HARLEY-DAVIDSON

A NEW WONDERFUL 45 TWIN.

HERE IT IS! THE 45 TWIN, THE MOTOR-CYCLE MAGNIFICENT, THAT THE WORLD HAS BEEN WAIT- TING FOR HARLEY-DAVIDSON TO BUILD.

AND SUCH A MOTOR-CYCLE! GREAT ACCELERA- TION-SMOOTH GLIDING POWER-QUIET SPEED THAT LEAVES THE PARADES OF CARS FAR BEHIND. ABOVE ALL, A MOTOR-CYCLE EASY TO HANDLE, A COMFORT AND A PLEASURE. TO RIDE. EVERYTHING, YOU WOULD EXPECT IN A 45 WITH THE HARLEY- DAVIDSON NAME ON THE TANKS. FEATURES GALORE THAT STAMP IT THE PEAK OF MODERN MOTOR-CYCLE ENGINEERING,

THE GASCON MOTOR CO.,

REPAIRS UNDERTAKEN ON ALL MAKES OF MACHINES, Tol. K. 1242

2, Kwong Wah Road, Kowloon. (Opposito The Steam Laundry}

A GOOD ASSORTMENT OF SPARE PARTS AND ACCESSORIES IN STOCK.

New Address of

CARS LIVE LONGER. Universal Motor & Supply Co

Reason for. Longer Life,

If your automobile has gone to the scrap heap before it has reach- ited its eighth year, you haven't got

the best out of it.

making the trip, but completed in the record breaking time of

18 hours,

The reason is that the average life of the modern motor car is

There are literally no roads between Rangoon and Mandalay eight and a quarter years, accord-

Ing to figures compiled by the American Road Builders' Associa-

a distance of approximately 885 miles. But C. E. Perry, a Rangoon on Imotorist, decided that the trip INTERESTING TRIP. ould be made. With a native Less than 2,000,000 cars, or ed in the United States, went to Though The Road to Manuide and another companion, he about 12 per cent. of all register dalay," Immortalized by Kipling's et forth from Rangoon equipped the scrap heap last year. At this ballad, is non-existent as far as with emergency road making tools, rate, it would take eight and a the motorist is concerned, word ind supremely confident of the quarter years to replace all cars

The ower and endurance of the on the roads to-day,

Since publishing the last 1st, has just been received by Crakine.

"By imbuing our youth with the the following motorists have join Studebaker Corporation that a knowledge of automotive operations ed the Hongkong Automobile stock Erskine Six tourer recently and the complexities of highway Association:-

travel, euch courses will help bring

A decline in the toll of traffic acej-' donts that, at present, contiate to rise. We of today, knowing com- paratively little of what goes on un- der the hood or of what is'expected of us on the rond, fall to compre- hend the seriousness of our posi-i tions at the wheel, despite fre- quent warnings, accidents and ar- rests,"

"Perhaps the next generation,

S. A. Lopes,

F. Hille.

The trip was a cross country made its own road on a gruellingun in every sense of the word. motorists through, a region of Jccasionally there were narrow elephant, grass, whero progress trip from Rangoon to Mandalay, art tracks to follow, but more was made at the rate of a mile in, India-and not only succeeded in often the Erskine blazed its own four hours. This gave way to rall through the jungle, For five thorn covered open country, which ours, at one stage of the trip, the could be traversed at better speed, car ploughed through soft paddy though its roughness was a severe Monday next from Shek Tonk elds, under a tropical sun that tax on the sturdiness of axles, Lt. Cor. J. II. Drummond. Suf to Causeway Bay, and the fare tested to the limit the power and frame, and body construction. W. Faid.

Dr. C. B. Chiu.

Dr. Fok Wing. Kan. W. J., Carrie,

LI Man

Robert Cunningham.

bred by education rather than Hongkong Bus Service. threat, will be more deeply Im pressed with the value of conserva-

will be ten cents. Monthly tickets cooling of the motor. In other On their arrival in Mandalay costing ten dollars will be issued places the caravan made slow

the Erskine and its driver wors deep zand. as from November lit. A number progress through

There were streams to ford, with welcomed with a demonstration ly members of the National Club, of these vehicles were employed water well up over the running and the feat praised throughout carrying people to and from the boards.

most The new Queen's Roald Bus Tattoo when they were

One of the most trying sections Burma and India as one of the most outstanding accomplishments of the trip took the Intrepid Indian motoring. tive, safe driving." Such a com-Service will commence running on favourably commented upon.

Kayamally Building,

Central.

No. 22, Queen's Road,

Telephone No. C. 4915,

CHINA UNDERWRITERS, LTD.

FOR

ALL CLASSES

OF

MOTOR INSURANCE

WRITE FOR PROSPECTUS

HEAD OFFICE:- ST. GEORGE'S BUILDING, HONGKONG,

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