Hints on Driving

by C. Morley Knight

The following would be built for horses about 15.2 in height:—

|Height of wheels.| The wheels should be fairly high, say about five feet, as this enables the horse to pull the cart over any small obstruction with greater ease than with low wheels.

|Track of wheels.| The track should be from five to five feet three inches wide. This gives plenty of room inside, and makes the cart less likely to upset.

FIG. 6.—DOG-CART.

|Bent shafts.| Bent shafts are the most convenient for driving horses of different heights, and should be pivoted on the front part of the cart and adjustable behind. A cart so constructed will easily admit of horses from 14.2 to 16 hands being driven in the same vehicle.

|Body of cart should be wide and low.| The body should be as wide as possible, because nothing is more uncomfortable than being cramped on a narrow seat. It also ought to be low on the axle, thus rendering the cart far more safe and also more comfortable.

A fixed body is better than one that moves backwards and forwards on the shafts, because it always remains the same distance from the horse, and enables the cart to be built lighter.

|Seat of cart.| The seat should be low enough to prevent the driver from feeling he is in want of a footstool or that he is half standing, and should slide in a groove out of which it cannot come if the horse falls down. Many men have been thrown out and had bad accidents simply because of the seat coming away. It is moreover more comfortable if slightly below the top of the sides of the cart. The back and front seats should be so arranged that the cart will balance equally well with one person or four—a result which can be arrived at by having the seats to slide backwards and forwards when more than two people are in the cart. |Heath’s patent seat the best.| I consider Heath’s patent the best for this purpose; it is very light and effective.

|Adjustable foot-rest necessary.| If the seat is a sliding one, the driver must have an adjustable foot-rest, and this can easily be managed by having about half-a-dozen pairs of holes in the floor of the cart for the foot-rest to fit into. It should be a plain board covered with indiarubber to prevent the feet slipping, and tilted at an incline which will keep the feet at right angles to the legs. |Bar foot-rest dangerous.| A bar foot-rest is most dangerous, as the feet may be easily caught under it in getting out of the cart. |Position of lamps.| The lamps should be fixed between the wheels and the sides of the cart, care being taken that there is plenty of room for them, so that should they get bent by any accident they will not interfere with the wheels. This position is much the best for tandem driving; in any other position they are continually catching the lash of the whip, and are consequently a perpetual source of annoyance.