On the road in year Queen came to throne
We are by now all aware that it is 70 years since the Queen came to the throne.
What has changed for motorists in Kent in those intervening seven decades?
Well the number of cars for one thing. There were approximately four million on the road in 1952, now it is more than 40 million.
In 1953 there was no drink-driving rule and no breathalyser; they didn’t come into being until 1967.
There were also no speed cameras (they first appeared in 1991) although to be honest most cars were not capable of going much above 60mph.
There were no seatbelts. It did not become compulsory for them to be installed until 1968, and it was not compulsory to wear them, if fitted, until 1983, and then only the driver and front seat passenger.
Perhaps it is not so surprising then that there were in fact more serious traffic accidents in 1952 than today – more than 5,000 fatalities that year, compared with around 1,800 today.
When you also take into account the smaller population then, it means that you were actually 3.8 times more likely to die in a traffic accident in 1952 then today, 70 years later, even though most people didn’t own a car.
Filling up the tank was a totally different experience. Petrol stations were still manned by a man in a white lab-coat who filled up the tank for you, with drivers choosing between Standard 74 octane or Premium 93 octane. Both had lead added to the mix which supposedly increased performance, but at the cost of polluting the atmosphere with poisonous fumes. Leaded petrol was banned in 2000.
And of course, more recently we’ve had another change – the introduction last summer of E10 petrol, that is fuel made with 10% ethanol.
On the other hand, in
1952 petrol was around four shillings and six pence a gallon (we still had predecimal coinage then and still filled up in gallons, not litres), that is the equivalent of 6p per litre. The average price today is around £1.90 per litre. Although to be fair, engine efficiency has improved so that whereas 24mpg was commonplace in the 1950s, many cars achieve double that distance today.
The most popular car of the time was the Morris Minor, closely followed by the Ford Anglia and Ford Popular, which were two almost identical cars. Both were still ‘sit-up-and-beg’ versions that preceded later flat models.
They were all cars that were built in Britain.
Although some new models were being equipped with snazzy new indicator lights, many cars – the Minor, Popular and Anglia among them – were still fitted with “trafficator” arms to indicate a change of direction. These were little illuminated flags that popped out of the side of the vehicle.
They were not very visible which is why learning the necessary arm movements to indicate a change of direction was a vital part of the driving test.
Most cars were still fitted with six-volt batteries, half the power of today’s 12-volt packs. As a consequence the headlamps were much dimmer. However, there were far fewer electrical gadgets to run off the battery. No sat-nav of course, not even a radio.
But rather more concerning was that many cars still had windscreen wipers (or we should say a windscreen wiper, since they were usually only fitted on the driver’s side) that worked not by electricity but from the vacuum in the intakemanifold of the carburettor. This was fine when the engine was idling, but meant that the more you put your foot down on the accelerator, they slower the wiper would go, until you reached the point when you were bombing along at maximum speed and it would stop altogether. One very definite advantage, however, was that most cars came with a starting handle. In cold weather, you could still crank the engine by hand and start it even with a flat battery. Gear choice was easy – most cars only had three forward gears. If you did have four gears, you probably had to “double de-clutch.” So when going from 4th to 3rd, you would depress the clutch, slip the lever into neutral, lift off the clutch, blip the accelerator to bring the revs up, depress the clutch again and select third. It sounds complicated but it soon became second nature.
Other popular cars of the period were the Austin A30, the Standard Vanguard and
the Ford Consul - all collectors’ items now. And the Queen’s car? She was travelling around in a Rolls Royce Phantom IV.