SPEED MANIA

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume XLVI, Issue 3275, 23 November 1928, Page 5

SPEED MANIA

A CANADIAN IN AMERICA.

A motorist of Manitoba gives in a Canadian paper an amusing account of the eye-opener he got when he made a trip into the United States.

He had been accustomed when driving about his home district to jogging along at about 30 miles an hour, and watching his speed pretty carefully when driving through towns, but when he got on to the fine concrete roads about Minnesota he found cars of the same brand as his own passing him as though he were standing still—in fact, I nobody seemed to drive under 45 miles an hour.

! Gradually he took to following the local fashion and liked it, but when he reached Minneapolis, and the same speed seemed to be maintained as the city was entered, he began to get the wind up.

There seemed no way of turning into side streets, as there was a stream of cars on his right (the American rule of the road is the opposite of ours), while as for pulling out and letting the procession of speed maniacs pass, that was equally impossible, because a double stream of cars was travelling in the other direction. A similar experience, only worse, was had in Chicago.

Later, when he escaped into Canada, at Detroit, he had become as crazy about fast driving himself, and in Southern Ontario, where the roads are excellent, the ideas about speed he found were much «the same as in the States. The trip, however, did not provide much enjoyment. Although he - came to appreciate the speed, the traveller got tired of looking at the rear of the ear in front of biin, or on a clear road at the line of concrete ahead. .

On the return trip he avoided large cities or roads that promised extra good conditions, and followed a route where there was some chance of driving at a reasonable speed and where he and his wife, reduced by this time to a state of nervous prostration, could see something of the country and enjoy themselves.