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The Woman at the Wheel 217
Suburban life is enhanced by the use of small cars which easily connect the
home and country club.
if the gallant rescuer isn't at hand she
must wait till he appears.
However, it is quite practicable to avoid
almost all tire trouble by the use of suitable
protectors. These, if properly made,
can stay on as long
as desired without
injuring the tires or
seriously reducing
speed. They prevent
punctures and
cuts, and in wet
weather they prevent
skidding without
need of special
non-skid attachments.
They are
scarcely suited to
fast going, and they
must be judiciously
selected, as not all
types are beneficial;
but for women, at
least, the tire insurance
they can give
is much more useful
than speed.
Engine-starters—
electric gear-shift—automatic spark advance—
power air-pump or tire protectors—an
engine running more smoothly and
tractably than ever before;—cars better
built and garages more numerous: is it
a wonder that so many women are driving?
I lately asked several
representative car manufacturers
what proportion
of their sales are for
women's use. One,
building a car above the
average in both power
and price, replied that in
Detroit sixteen per cent
of his sales were of that
character, and he
thought the same proportion
would hold good
elsewhere. Another,
building enormous numbers
of a light car
peculiarly suited to
women's use, reported
estimates from various
branches ranging from
one per cent in Fargo and
two per cent in San
Francisco to twenty-five per cent in Columbus
and Minneapolis and thirty-one
per cent in Oklahoma City. The average
was better than ten per cent. A third,
building a popular small runabout, esti-
A Liverpool (England) woman in an American car in which she competed
in the Austrian Alpine trials of 1914.
mates that twenty-five percent of his sales
are for women.
In some localities the percentage of
women drivers is even greater. In Lenox,
Mass., for example, a census of thirty-four
car-owning families shows sixteen women
drivers, of whom seven drive medium to