Secret Squirrel Solves The Public Transportation Problem.

Once again,I,Secret Squirrel, have turned my thoughts to the problem public personal transportation,with a view to vastly reduced carbon emissions, and hence forth as well reducing, even yet eliminating ,the necessity for rather messy and ever increasingly expensive petrol,by removing the engine, to commence with,by replacing it,utterly and entirely. Ah!But with what would I replace that engine?However would we drive,as in power,such a car? Well, as always, ever turning my thoughts to the ancients and the engineers that went before me,I,The Great Engineer, I,not they, have found a solution.

You see, this Italian,this Martini, (not related to the beverage which has his name),was a 14th Century Italian painter, who had been trained in engineering. He designed (on paper) a man-propelled carriage, mounted on four wheels. Each wheel was powered by a hand-turned capstan arrangement. Gearing was also provided to transmit the rotation of each capstan to the wheel below. It may have looked good on paper, but the four turners of the capstans couldn't have kept it up for long before they fell over with exhaustion.However,what with modern technological ideas,such as extensive use of gearing,this problem could be, and is, over come,and we could reduce this efficiently,and effectively,to one turner, turning a central capstan,and so gearing to each of the wheels,optional to front wheels or rear wheels,or all wheels drive as well, depending on the specific model of said design of vehicle.We would not drive,as in power, the car, they would, but we would steer.

Now, I mentioned THEY, they who would power the car.Well who would that be,who could that be?There is, of course, no shortage of manpower available for that means,indeed, round and about the world,as there was in the old days past, but perhaps the modern Africans will not permit theirs to work as chauffeurs as it were according to modernized trains of thought.Sadly, t'is what happens with increasing modernizations.But we do have available those on the dole,effectively providing them with jobs,but they may not take kindly to work, certainly not working for their dole, for that would be work you see. We could,perhaps, take a page from the way the Royal Navy ran in the old days of sail, and so we could offer British citizenship to those of other lands, in exchange for a few years of work as said required chauffeurs,chauffeurs being those who would power the car,on a sort of live in basis,a form of au pair,with or without salary. The concept so obviously and effectively, works on paper,physically,mechanically, and in terms of engineering, and we'd have personal transport,and at the same time solved the problems of ever increasing gasoline costs, reducing the need for gasoline,and so reducing global warming as well.We'd be in the catbird seat as it were, the drivers seat once more,except,of course,for those travailing to power the car.Ever onwards, solving our problems in retrospect as it were, looking back as it were, applying the ideas of the older,ancient times,and so by turning,and we're ever proceeding with, our backsides to the future.

Secret Squirrel,
MRL, (MP,Dunny On The Wold),
Minister For Re-Deranged Re-Engineering.