Road safety research conducted by using some quirky looking constructions and some 'children's toys'.
Langley, Buckinghamshire.
A man plays with a model of a lorry releasing it on the improvised road slope which ends as a long flat platform. He observes the lorry as it stops along the platform. At the first release, lorry just slows down and stops. At the second release, it stops promptly and turns around for a full circle (360 degrees). This is one of the tests carried out at Road Research Laboratory in Langley, Buckinghamshire. In this case, a break fault simulator shows what happens when wheels lock at speeds of 35-40 m.p.h.
Two men are seen adjusting something around a strange looking motorcycle with a sidecar. The sidecar wheel is moved to the left - "set at an angle of 20 degrees from the direction of travel" in order to measure slipperiness of the road. Sidecar is filled with measuring devices which collect the data and draw diagrams so that experts can analyse the data and work on the possible road improvements. Two men drive around, one is watching the road while another is watching the sidecar measuring devices. Several top shots of the sidecar wheel and a diagram being drown.
Two men are seen wheeling a very strange wire construction down the road. It looks like a crane placed horizontally on wheels with a tin bath tub fitted in the middle. One man is wheeling the strange device slowly along the road and another is looking into the 'bath tub'. This is, voiceover enlightens us, a PROFILOMETER and it is used for recording 'longitudinal undulations', better known as bumps!
Another enormously difficult construction is presented - machine which 'simulates the performance of rim-tight cycle brakes in wet weather'. Next, the mighty windscreen that brakes into million pieces and still stays intact. And finally, the demonstration (with a toy car, wet sponge and a conveyor belt type road) of how difficult it is to climb up the hill when road is wet.
jamied says
I'm no expert, but it appears that the bike that features heavily in this clip from 0:23 onwards still exists. With the Registration Number "EUC 23", it is apparently a 1938 OEC Jap 980cc Special, and recently sold at auction for £18K....
https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/19163/lot/341/
jamied says
Reading the article again, it may be that the Jap engine wasn't added until 1967, 10 years after this film was shot.