SPEED MANIA.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 148, 23 June 1906, Page 15

SPEED MANIA.

An American physician, Dr. W. Lee Howard, classes what he calls speed mania with drug and alcoholic mania. Nevertheless, he by no means condemns the automobile. Its use "is ths best method we have of controlling and satisfying the high psychic pressure of mental unrest." A dangerous dash "into tjie 'Country on a racing machine" is "a wholesome rent for the reckless courage that otherwise would go to disorder and riotous excess." When, therefore (says the British Medical Journal), we narrowly escapa destruction in a country lane, at the hands of a thirty -mile automobjlist, by falling into a ditch., we must obviously not resent the inconvenience. We must tell ourselves that the apparently grossly inconsiderate "bounder" is merely a Tentleman of high-toned nervous organisation trying to calm himself dowp. That the doctrine is laudably nltruistio is the best that can be said of it. t» nutomobfle drive in the country is doubtless on excellent recuperative after a hard day's work, but to obtain all possible benefit high speed driving is certainly not necessary, while the conception that automobile driving is especially to be encouraged on the part of persons wb.Qs,e nervous equilibrium is already trembling in the balance is utterly untenable. On the contrary, such persons, though they may well be gent for automobile drivesin order to obtain the sedative effect of exposure to briskly-moving air. should certainly not be allowed to tako any part in the control of the machine. As for speed mania, if any such thing really exists, it should be treated when recognised as a dangerous foim of lunacy; in the meantime, the best prophj lactic is a scries of heavy fines, endorsement of driving certificates, and expulsion from clubs which have the motor industry at heart/.