She says . . .

Press, 14 July 1978, Page 14

She says . . .

Driving at night is difficult. Driving at night during the winter is much more difficult. Driving at night during the winter if you are inexperienced can be highly dangerous. I heard the story recently of a young driver —one who had held his licence for a week only—who went driving the wintry night we had a heavy frost. His car had been parked in the open. The windows had become badly fogged. Visibility was very poor. He drove but, for some reason, left the interior lights on. Not surprisingly, he couldn’t see where he was driving. He “wobbled off the road” and hit the rear end of a parked car, causing considerable and expensive damage to both cars. Once they’ve heard this much of the story, of course, anv experienced dri-

ver is sitting there with a smug smile. Well, they say, fancy driving with the interior light on. And with misted-up windows, too. Well, of course he had an accident. But from what I see, it’s a quite unjustified smug smile. Because every day, and every evening, you can see experienced drivers who should know a lot better driving about the city with misted-up or iced-up windows. You even see some of them driving about with the interior lights on, as they look at maps or other documents. Not so common, I grant you, but you do see it. It’s dangerously easy to drive off without bothering to make sure that the windows are clear enough, inside and out, to give a clear view. There are far too few of us who are prepared to take the time and trouble to clear the back and front windows properly of mist or ice before we drive off. If you don’t believe that, just look about

you any cold morning. You’ll see. I think it’s also fair to ask what sort of a drivertraining system we have, what sort of an examination system we have, what sort of driving instructors, which will set a driver off on his career, and let him get a licence, without impressing on him the great danger of the basic fault of not being able to see properly. The system obviously does work this way—because so many of us give so little attention to being able to see. Yet how can anyone hope to drive about without hitting things if they can’t see properly? It seems obvious enough—but it’s also obvious enough that most of us are prepared, sooner or later, to

take the risk. Sometimes it doesn’t come off. —Barbara Petre