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Show WAR DEMM THE UTILIZJITION OF AUTO Shippers and Public Will Insist Upon Keeping Motor Car Going. j As he war goes on, ajxl as the pas-! pas-! senger-carrying capacity of the national ; railroad lines decreases, because of the ! preference accorded freight transporta-; transporta-; tion, the traveling public is predicting I that passenger automobiles must be de-1 de-1 pended upon to meet the situation. Statistics compiled by leading automo-j automo-j bile engineers show that as much as 70 I per cent of a car's mileage is consumed j in service which would require the use of some other vehicle. These figures holding before the United States entered hostilities, it is logical to assume that the percentage at the present day is perceptibly per-ceptibly higher. Many business concerns have already provided their salesmen with cars for covering various territories, and have thereby increased the efficiency of their contract with the trade by nearly 50 per cent, as represented by" the additional addi-tional calls made possible during a single dav. Nowadays, commercial men are commenting on their Inability to get around satisfactorily by l:ain, and are looking to automobile service as soon as the roads open up. But in the northern half of the United States, the eiYiciency of both passenger car and truck is reduced about 50 per cent, because snow closes the roads to traffic during the winter months. If the present conditions obtain for any length of time, shippers and the traveling public will bn insisting upon the main roads being kept open, which could e.isily be dene if every frosh snowfall were pushed aside as fast as U accumulated. Millions are bring spent for road development by the various states and by the national government every year, yet this investment invest-ment lies idle one-half the time while the elements are busily at work disintegrating disinte-grating what has already been done. At the ;-amc time there Is a large proportion propor-tion of the tuition's 4.000,000 automobiles whose use is restricted by this condition, condi-tion, and in which the investment is not earning maximum profit It is incompatible with the trend of modern business that such a situation should prevail. With highways becoming more and more the avenues of communication between be-tween the principal cities, and with auto-iV'-biles gaining noticeable predominance among Vehicles, the question of weight as it affects road maintenance, guina in importance. Especially with, relation to passenger automobiles, it is becoming recognized rec-ognized that a 4000-pound vehicle being be-ing required to carry less than a 1000-pound 1000-pound passenger load, represents a loss in efficiency. Not only does this proportion propor-tion of car weight to load consume more gasoline and rubber, but the wear and tear on the roads is also out of proportion. propor-tion. It seems that war-time automobile service would do. much to correct tills condition. |