chauffeur will win out whose perception of the conditions
affecting these several factors is quickest and clearest.
One man will go down a hill, or make a safe turn at a high rate of
speed, where another will land in the ditch, simply because the
former overlooks nothing, while the latter does. It is not so much
a matter of experience as of natural bent and adaptability. Some
men can drive machines with very little experience and no
instructions; others cannot, however long they try and however
much they are told.
Accidents on the road are due to
Defects in the road,
Defects in the machine, or
Defects in the driver.
American roads are bad, but not so bad that they can, with
justice, be held responsible for many of the troubles attributed
to them.
The roads are as they are, a practically constant,--and, for some
time to come,--an unchangeable quantity. The roads are like the
hills and the mountains, obstacles which must be overcome, and
machines must be constructed to overcome them.
Complaints against American roads by American manufacturers of
automobiles are as irrelevant to the issue as would be complaints
on the part of traction-engine builders or wagon makers. Any man
who makes vehicles for a given country must make them to go under
the conditions--good, bad, or indifferent--which prevail in that
country. In building automobiles for America or Australia, the
only pertinent question is, "What are the roads of America or
Australia?" not what ought they to be.
The manufacturer who finds fault with the roads should go out of
the business.
Roads will be improved, but in a country so vast and sparsely
settled as North America, it is not conceivable that within the
next century a net-work of fine roads will cover the land; for
generations to come there will be soft roads, sandy roads, rocky
roads, hilly roads, muddy roads,--and the American automobile must
be so constructed as to cover them as they are.
The manufacturer who waits for good roads everywhere should move
his factory to the village of Falling Waters, and sleep in the
Kaatskills.
Machines which give out on bad roads, simply because the roads are
bad, are faultily constructed.
Defects in roads, to which mishaps may be fairly attributed, are
only those unlooked for conditions which make trouble for all
other vehicles, such as wash-outs, pit-holes, weak culverts,
broken bridges,--in short, conditions which require repairs to
Here's a piece of wisdom on driving or cute car quote to study:
The car has become a secular sanctuary for the individual, his shrine to the self, his mobile Walden Pond. ~Edward McDonagh
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