The Improvement of Solid Tyre Design. I T IS CURIOUS that
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a material of the comparatively soft character of the rubber used in a solid tyre should be liable to a chavgoof road surface destruction and, in drawing attention to this characteristic, Mr. Worby Beaumont thinks that the damage to soft surfaced roads, such as are now so extensively traversedby omnibuses and other commercial Vehicles, coula be materially reduced by an alterae tion of the section of the tyres commonly used.
The semi-circular, or similar section (which is generally regarded as necessary for a tyre, in order to give the rubber of the tread a firm and well-supported backing) may reduce the deformation of the rubber by pressure at the tread but, when the tyre is new or nearly new, it offers only a very small transverse area of contact with the road surface, andit will, in consequence, sink easily into a sate surface. There is, therefore, a. tendency to form furrows, the ridges formed at the edges of these furrows constituting loose material, -which rapidly becomes mud. By repetition of this operation, the surface crust eventually gets penetrated by the wheels.
Another a_gument against the use of the rounded section is that, in consequence of the reduced area of contact, with the ground, the prominent part of the round section rapidly wears away and the loss of rubber becomes less rapid when the wear has increased the flat surface of the tyre to about 3 ins.
The recommendation made by Mr. Worby Beaumont to tyre manufacturers and users is to use tyres which are wide and flat in the tread, particularly as the greater knowledge of suitable rubber compounds for tyres which is Possessed by ,manufacturers should enable them to design tyres the peripheral edges of !which may deform easily within certain limits (thus escaping some of the load bearing), which wouldovear more satisfactorily, and would offer more resistance to.sideslip on at greasy surface. Tyres fortfire-engines would seem to have advanced much furtheri along the desiredlines than tyres for buses or lorries.
Warwickshire Wants the Rear-view Mirror.
THE PROPOSAL, which has been made to the Warwickshire County Council, that a by-law should be passed, requiring that every locomotive and heavy motor vehicle, used on a highway in the county, shall be provided with a rear-view nirror, is, not unnaturally, receiving support among those sections of roadeusers who are the most likely to be delayed and inconvenienced by the inability of the driver of a heavy motor vehicle to bear the warn ing sounds from overtaking vehicles.
If such a movement were to start in the county, it ahnost,goee without saying that it would quickly spread to the counties adjacent, thus immediately increasing, approximately as a cube, the number of vehicles likely to be affected, af the same time increasing the difficulties and the uncertaintyr. For this latter reason, we are not fond of legislation by counties. By-laws involve exceptions and, frequently, anomalies, and the better way would seem to be a discussion by the County Councils Association to see whether unanimity,' or practical unanimity, in the matter could not be obtained.
' We, ourselves, have always approved of the use of the rear-view mirror, having been amongst the first half-dozen" motorists to follow the example of the originator (Mr. A. J Wilson). It must always be necessary on any vehicle that, by reason of its speed, is liable to be overtaken, and we have rarely *fame across a driver of a heavy, vehicle who did not ex-' press his approval of the device. The National. Council of the Commercial Motor Users Association now has the matter before it ,on a recommendation for. favourable consideration from the Royal. Automobile Club. The considered opinion of the Association' would be welcomed because, if it favours the proposal, users could, with advantage, set about equipping their vehicles with rear-view mirrors, without waiting for the}introduction of by-laws by any county authority, and thus be able to purchase the devices in a less crowded market.
The London Traffic Authority.
THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE which recently reported on London traffic are unanimous in calling for the appointment of a Traffic Authority, and are equally unanimous in their recommendation as to how that authority shall be constituted.
The report states, for instance, that the technical committee which. assisted the Advisory Committee were about evenly divided•on the question of whether themuthority should be.quite,a small body of highlypaid experts, or whether ittshould be a comparatively large body representative of Local Government interests and; backed by a commission of three members in whom additional powers would be vested. This second idea would involve a committee of 12 to 24 members, all appointed by local authorities. In addition, ex officiolimembers without voting power would be appointed by the Commissioners of Police, the Port of London Authority and the Minister of Transport on behalf of the main line railways.
The Traffic Authority would have wide powers, including that of purchasing railways, tramways and motor buses subject to the assent of the Ministry of Transport. It would be able to prohibit the in.: augueation of any new transport agency and, in certain circumstances, it would be empowered towork existing agencies itself. Now, we come to the Commission proposed as an additional body.. It is suggested that, of the three members, two should be appointed by the Minister of Transport and one by the Home Secretary. The Commission would be responsible to the Minister of Transport, and would, in effect, be entirely under his thumb. The powers of the Commission _would nominally be those at present exercised by Government. departments, whereas the powers of the authority would be those at present vested in local authorities. .
The scheme favoured by the Advisory Committee appears to be a much simpler one, doubtless not perfect, but far less open to criticism than the one outlined above. It involves the appointment of a traffic authority consisting of three highly-qualified and wellpaid members, acting.in an advisory capacity to the Minister of Transport, but not appointed by him. This authority would report to Parliament every three months. There would be no part-time men concerned in the preparation of big „schemes, and, therefore, one might anticipate continuity of policy. The risk that the authority might be ignored, or flouted, by the Minister of Transport would be eliminated, by the provision that it shall make' frequent public reports which would immediately re-open any points at issue between. the Ministe`r and .the authority.
Reverting to the alternative scheme, the authority in this case would be soHnewhatfunwieldy, 'despite which it wouldbnot be properly, representative of all the local authorities conceined. The personnel of these latter ,is constantly. changingand so, also, therefore, would be the peisondel of the authority, so that continuityaof policy would be impossiblegand, particularly after local elections, the authority would consist mainly ,of men trying, to pick up the thread's of an immenge subject of which most of them had only very incomplete,knowledge. It is to be feared also thaqa. 'body representative only of local authorities might be.strOngly prejudiced, for political rear: sons, and, therefore, not really comPetent.to hold the 'scales fairly between the 'various systems of transport.
Finally, it is more than likely that sooner or later the authority and the Commission would be at loggerheads and thingewould go wrong -while the two were quarrelling over the exact limitations of their powers and their Spheres of influence.
We must, tnerefore,,siun up in favour of the proposal of the Advisory.qommittee as againstjhe only alternative which,appears torhave been seriously supported. Certainly, the ptToPosal advocated involves the grant, of additional 'powers to' the Minister of Transport, but it is difficult to see 'how thisscan be avoided without complication and clashing. Inci: clentally, the scheme would dispose once and for all of that pernicious system—the power orveto Thy local authorities, making it possible for comprehensive schemes to be entirely blocked by small minorities 'occupying key pesitions. .
The State and Road Classification.'
ASORT OF 'communique from the Minister of Transport on, the subject of the classification of, roads,' published in the daily Tress under . . the guise of an interview granted by an official of the Ministry, does not take -as very mucti further. When the Nil' for the establishment of the Ministry was under discussion, Sir Eric Geddes admitted that the classification of roads was a subject on which he was not fully informed. Since then he has stated on various occasions his approval of the principle and his intention of acting upon it.
Up to the present, the bulk of the money from Imperial funds made available for uses upon the roads has not been so allocated as necessarily to bring about improvement from the road foundation upwards. It has, in the main, 'merely gone to local authorities and been applied as they saw fit, with a view to doing something to counterbalance the deterioration of roads due to lack of labour and material, and to rough usage during the war.
Before the war, grants were, of courie, made by the Road Board le which conditions were attached. These, grants were for road improvements as totally distinct from road maintenance. So far as our prineipal roads are concerned, improvement is an absolute lecessity. Many of the roads required to carry through traffic in considerable quantities are by no means equal to the burden put upon them by modern conditions.
It has-long been apparent that, since the coming of the motor vehicle, the use made of our roads has undergone a. fundamental change. Previously, the traffic they mailed was almost entirely local in character. It ran for the benefit of local residents, and it'was reasonable that the locality alone should provide the roads for such a. purpose. Now, there are many roads the bulk of the traffic upon which is not local, in tho sense that its existence does not benefit the local authorities responsible for road maintenance.
Thus, it becomes quite unreasonable to expect those local authorities even to maintain, much less to improve, main roads entirely at their own expense. Contributions from the National Exchequer are therefore necessary, and the. extent of these contributions should depend in each ease upon the extent to which the road is to carry national traffic as )distinct from local traffic.
In practice, no absolutely equitable scheme of national contributions is possible. The most we can hope. to do is to divide the roads into a. few broad classes, estimating the average percentage of through traffic in respect of each class of road and providing for motional contributions in accordance with tnose estimates.Thus, we may have a class of main. road in respect of which much of the initial cost of improvement and, subsequently, about half the cost of continuecl maintenance should be borne by the National Exchequer. Other roads of less importance may be classified as deserving a 25 per cent. contribution. Others wholly local in purpose should remain wholly the concern of local authorities. From time to time, -any such classfficationswoulki.need revision, because through traffic will naturally develop on more and more of the roads throughput the country.
The scheme on the whole is undoubtedly a logical one, and the adoption of some such scheme is the only conceivable justification for the special taxation of motor vehicles, sine the purpose would be to render certain of our more important roads far better suited from the foundations' upwards to carry all classes of motor traffic.