By the time you have read and thoroughly digested the preceding chapters I feel sure you will be able to take your car out for a spin without any misadventure.

There are but a few points which I want to impress upon you in this chapter. Do not let what you may think the great expense debar you from the pleasure of motoring. There is no great expense unless you want to make it so. In my first chapter I spoke of the price of cars and accessories. I gave a total of £300 as the average probable outlay. By no means do I want to revise these figures, but wish to remind you that the figures quoted

are, in every instance, for articles of the very best quality.

There are now being made several small cars by big firms, many of these cars being eminently suitable for a woman to drive. It is possible to procure a car at £120. The accessories, also, such as the hood and screen, need not be plated or expensively enamelled. Cape cart hoods which have the iron-work painted instead of plated are quite as serviceable, require less cleaning and the cost is considerably less; and so with other things—but it is wise to always get the best. Durability and reliability is what you want, especially if you are limited as to expenditure. I particularly mention these matters because only the other day a friend spoke to me about the expenditure, and said that she could not possibly afford three hundred pounds. She proposed to buy a second-hand car for a small sum and have it repaired.

My advice to her was “Don’t.” And then I ran over a list of expenditure in getting a new car and everything necessary new. Taking the same quality as mentioned in my first chapter, but not as expensively or so well finished, I found my total less than £230.

One could, of course, go much below this by buying a second-hand car; but I would not advise this. If you know the people who have a second-hand car for sale, and can thus be assured that you will not in any way be tricked, then it might be worth while buying. But from the experience of people I know, I would rather warn you against the cars which are advertised “as good as new,” and for sale for a few pounds. You would probably have to spend in repairs in the first year as much as a new car would cost.

So soon as you are the owner of a car, licensed and ready for the road, become a member of the Ladies’ Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland. Its headquarters are situated at Claridge’s Hotel, in Upper Brook Street. The club has a suite of rooms there. Send in your application to Miss K. d’Esterre Hughes, the secretary of the club.

By joining the club you have many advantages. For instance, there is, of course, the convenience of using the club rooms and the club garage when in town, and in getting a percentage off your hotel bills. But there is the greater advantage of getting all the necessary information you may want regarding hotels, roads, and such like when you want to go for a tour. There is, in fact, scarcely any information appertaining to motoring which you cannot get at the club. It is always good for a woman car-owner to belong to the first motor club in the kingdom.

Every big town has an automobile club affiliated with the Royal Club, with which the Ladies’ Club is also affiliated, so that by membership in the Ladies’ Club you have a standing at once with the other clubs throughout the country, and also abroad.

Every motoriste should become a member of the Automobile Association. It is an association formed for the purpose of placing scouts on the different main roads to warn motorists of police traps—and the expenditure of £2 2s. a year in this direction will perhaps be the means of saving you four or five times that amount within a few months. You will be given an “A.A.” badge to fasten on the front of your car, and on seeing this the scouts will always stop you if there is any danger.

With regard to learning to drive, you must do so on quiet country roads or at one of the many motoring schools in and around the big cities; but know something of the school before you decide on it. There are many in which your money would be thrown away.

If you do not go to a school choose a road where there is little or no traffic. One is not allowed to learn in the parks. In fact there is quite a heavy fine imposed on inexperienced drivers who use the parks. Do not go into a street of heavy traffic until you have thoroughly mastered your car, and then drive first some half-dozen times with an expert friend as chauffeur and thus get used to the crushes and the twistings and turnings.

In traffic use your own judgment. Ladies are usually bad at judging distances, and it is well to keep as much toward the middle of the road as possible and not try too many “near things” until you have reached the expert class.

Do not be afraid to sound your horn, yet

do not use it more than necessary. At cross streets or roads and when approaching corners sound the horn and slacken speed by throttling.

There are numberless little things which, after you have graduated to the ranks of the experienced motoriste, you will buy, not because they are absolutely necessary, but because of their convenience. For instance, a speedometer. All the half-dozen makes are good ones. A speedometer is a very interesting accessory, for it tells you exactly the pace at which you are travelling, and in some instances has been known to influence the decision of a magistrate when deciding a charge of exceeding the speed-limit.

For winter driving they are now making a fur and leather arrangement which covers the steering-wheel; but I would suggest that, to the beginner at any rate, this is superfluous. Soft kid gloves, fur-lined, are much better.

Novelties of all sorts are always coming on the market; but the beginner had better let some one else try these first. It is an expensive thing to keep on experimenting with every new device for a car or the motoriste. Let others try them, and if they should prove of real use you will soon know.