Page:Motors and motor-driving (1902).djvu/253

Rh shown being prevented from rotation by the radius rod, attached to the frame. It will be seen that this brake holds equally well in either direction. It is made by Messrs. James and Brown.

Other forms of brakes which act in both directions have been adopted, as in the Cannstadt-Daimler cars, the Riker, the Panhard Krebs car, the Electric Vehicle Co. and others, and more recently by Darracq, De Dion, Bouton, and Decauville, but many are still fitted of the untrustworthy kind. These are types, and all but the substantially made and well connected brakes should be avoided.

Brake bands with wood blocks attached will work very well, but well-fitted bands with metal-wearing surfaces are much



better, and brakes made up of small wire ropes and tacked or tied on or threaded wood blocks are not to be encouraged.

However good the brake, it needs careful inspection and occasional adjustment, and much more thought than is usually bestowed on so important a factor of safety.

A fruitful cause of accident and of wear and tear of brakes, tyres and car generally, is the abuse of a good firm-holding brake. Maintaining high speed to the last moment and depending on sudden application of the brakes is a very bad and often dangerous practice.

The injudicious use of brakes or the rash driving which entails the excessive employment and the abuse of brake power, is not only to be condemned because it is so likely to cause the breakage of the brake gear, and so render a driver