Putnam's Automobile Handbook: The Care and Management of the Modern Motor-Car

by H. Clifford Brokaw; Charles A. Starr

Perhaps the answer to all this criticism is that in and about New York, where there is a dense population, there are thousands of drivers who are not from the ranks of the well-bred, by which is not meant the wealthy. The low price of cars and the thousands of used cars on the market has put them at the disposal of the butcher boy and the hod carrier and bell hop, and they seem to have the idea that the driver of a car possesses superior rights over others and must assert it. Out in the land where folks have a chance to open their lungs and breathe, a broader view of life is held. It is a fact, however, that the well-to-do families of the East are more and more requiring of their drivers that they follow the golden rule and not the Eben Holden brand. You remember Eben’s version: “Do unto others what they are trying to do unto you, and do it fust.”

Secretary of State Francis M. Hugo, of New York, recently delivered an address to a group of students in which he said a number of pertinent things concerning the operation of cars, based upon his own experiences. It is so good that it is reprinted here:

It is not too much to say that the future of motoring largely depends upon the behavior of motorists and their drivers toward the public. As fewer owners of large touring machines drive their own cars nowadays in proportion to the number driven than used to be the case, it is, therefore, mainly the behavior of their drivers on the road that is important. The subject of the training of the motor man is consequently worth much attention, and that the automobile community as a whole realizes this is evident not only by the establishment of various schools, where the mechanical side of the profession is taught to the future driver, but by the efforts of various clubs and associations, notably of the Y. M. C. A., who have started schools all over the country to help in this training.

For the past few years, those who drive motor cars for wages have been called “chauffeurs,” a word against which a protest should always be made on the double ground of etymology and nationality. To begin with, the word in reality means “stoker.” On the foot plate of a French locomotive the driver is called “mechanicien,” while the fireman is designated as the “chauffeur.” In the case of motor cars propelled by steam, the word “chauffeur” may thus be held to be remotely correct, but on the ordinary car propelled by the internal combustion engine or by electric power, there is no sense in the term. In the best French circles also, the word “mechanicien” is always used to designate the driver of a car and the word “chauffeur” even in France is said to be becoming obsolete.

The motorman, as he will, therefore, be called, is very often the subject of much discussion and sometimes of irrational abuse. Of course, there are black sheep in this profession, as in every other, but one is glad to place on record that black sheep were far more numerous five years ago than they are now. No one who observes without prejudice the behavior of motor-car drivers in New York City and elsewhere can help being struck with the careful way in which private motor cars are now driven, the neatness and cleanliness of the men themselves, and the vast improvement which has taken place in their general manners. Formerly, it was thought to be the highest mark of the profession that a motorman should be dirty in every respect, and a greasy cap, black hands and face, oily clothes and, as a rule, a half-smoked dirty cigarette in the side of his mouth, combined with a contemptuous scowl at every passer-by, was not an uncommon sight.

This state of things, however, has changed for the better. Occasionally a specimen of the primeval driver is met with, and even now the habit of cigarette smoking when in charge of a car is supposed, by the younger and less intelligent men of the profession, to confer an air of knowledge coupled with disdain. In course of time this form of swagger will die out also. The manners, moreover, of many motormen to their employers and to their fellow servants have not in the past been all that could be desired, but as stated before, their general behavior is markedly improving, and it must be remembered that, motormen are greatly superior in intelligence to most of their predecessors.

It need hardly be noted here that much depends upon the way the motorman has been trained. When automobiling was just beginning the only person available who even half knew the somewhat complicated machine of the early days was the mechanic trained for a few months in the shop where the car had been manufactured. He was master of the situation because he alone had working knowledge of its parts. No one in those days thought for one moment of a motorman from the viewpoint of good driving. The owner of the car, above all, desired to possess a good mechanic, for breakdowns were numerous and varied and half of the expenses of motoring were necessitated by renewals of parts or adjustments due to ordinary wear and tear. Nowadays serious or even insignificant breakdowns are rare, and there is hardly a first-class make of car in the market which will not run many thousands of miles without anything being necessary in the way of repairs and adjustments. Those which are necessary are, moreover, of the simplest kind. There is no longer, therefore, the same necessity for the motorman to be what is called a really good mechanic, so long as he understands the general principle on which the engine works and the arrangement of the gears.

The majority of motor-car owners have, therefore, changed in their requirements. They do not want a man who is primarily a skilled mechanic, but they do ask for a skillful driver, and on this wise alternative in the chief qualifications demanded lies a good deal of the reason for the great change which has taken place in the behavior of the motorman in the city and out of it. It may be remarked that an excellent mechanic is not necessarily a good driver, though he may be so in certain cases. What is required in the driver besides the general knowledge of the machinery is a knowledge of the customs and courtesies of the road and the habits of traffic, the possession of the qualities of alertness, foresight, and consideration for others. Above all, he should have a temperate frame of mind, an abstinence not only from drunkenness, but drinking in any but a most moderate sense. The driver of an ordinary wagon is conspicuous by his ignorance of the way to drive and his want of consideration of other traffic. He is the most persistent moving obstruction which exists. The motor-car driver, on the other hand, has to be the best driver on the highway if he is to drive without offense to the public and danger to them and himself, for he has to conduct a vehicle which is more valuable than any other and far and away more speedy though more handy, and, therefore, whose meeting with and overtaking of other vehicles is many times more rapid. In addition to these, he has to consider other dangers of the road to which other vehicles are not so liable and which come from the construction of its surface.

The complete motorman should have a working knowledge of the different materials of which roads are made, of their comparative tendency to cause skidding, and of the perils which arise from excessive and badly laid street-car tracks. He must know and continually practice the courtesies of the road and learn its manners and customs. He must be observant and realize that children hanging on the rear of wagons are liable to drop off suddenly and run across his path. He must be on the look-out for pedestrians, stupid, drunk, or deaf, for wagons on the wrong side of dangerous corners, and to be prepared to find vehicles in charge of sleepy drivers who will often do the wrong act on awakening. It will, therefore, be seen that the motorman to be really good has to be the best driver on the road and that the standard demanded must necessarily be high. He must possess exceptional qualities as compared with the horse driver. The question is, therefore, all important—What are the best methods of training such a man?

There is no doubt that many of the schools which are teaching elementary mechanics to the would-be motorman are excellent in their way. But there are many which are nothing but frauds. Reports have frequently been made to the State where a man has complained bitterly of having put down $25 or $50 in return for which nothing but most elementary instruction has been given and this often in the worst possible way. There has been no teaching in traffic rules or on the road, or, if given, so little as to be of no use. But at other places pains are taken, and, by diagrams in the class-room and practical teaching on the road much has been taught. There are also nowadays hand-books galore which teach the construction, repair, the common faults and likely failings of the gasoline engine from A to Z. The mechanical side may, therefore, be said to have been amply provided for.