NEW INTOXICATION

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 July 1932, Page 4

NEW INTOXICATION

DRUNK ON SPEED. (By Y.Y., in the “New Statesman.”) It was somewhat surprising to find Lord Buckmaster complaining in the House of Lords that during the past three years 20,691 people had been killed on the roads, and more than 500,000 injured. To anyone less steeped in prejudice than Lord Buckmaster, these figures must seem a matter not for complaint, but for congratulation. Consider the facts of the case. Here we have a large island in which almost any adult who pleases can for the sum of 5/- obtain a licence to rush round the country with an instrument scarcely less dangerous than a machine-gun. He may be a knave or a fool, but that does not matter if he has 5/-. No restriction is put on the speed at which he may travel, except that it shall not be capable of being proved dangerous in the circumstances in a court of law. He is given a little booklet of good advice along with his licence, but in practice he finds it all but perfectly safe to ignore this. To ignore white lines, to pass at corners, to cut in—he soon learns that he can do any of these things, without even having to pay a fine. He knows, too, that if he becomes involved in an accident and is lucky enough to escape alive, he will be almost sure to be exonerated from blame, largely because conclusive evidence about the responsibility for road accidents is extremely difficult to obtain. Again, he knows that, whatever the figures reveal, voices will be raised in commendation of the motoring community for its increasingly careful driving, and that, unless he is actually the worse for drink at the time of an accident, he can commit a crime—for it is a crime to kill a man, woman, or child through reckless driving—with greater prospects of immunity than any other citizen.

Thus, the motorist is in a position of enormous privilege. Tlie country grows quite excited over a dozen or so ordinary murders for which the police had been able to bring no one to book; but it is extraordinarily philosophic about the hundreds and even thousands of the killings on the roads for which the police have been able to biding no one to book. It is as though the law said: “You may not kill a man in order to take his money, but you may kill a man if he prevents you from travelling as fast as you wish on the road.” In the circumstances, I‘ contend that the British motorist has behaved with remarkable moderation in helping to kill only 20,691 people in the course of three years. Why, that amounts to fewer than twenty deaths ' a day! If the great mass of motorists, instead of being responsible , and reasonable drivers, exercised their privileges as the bad drivers do, one would expect twenty people to be killed every day on the Watford by-pass alone. Hence I contend that things are not as bad as they might be, and that Lord Buckmaster’s figures, appalling though they seem at a first glance, give us reason to be thankful that they are not a great deal worse.

20,000 TOO MANY. At the same time, even 20,000 deaths are too many, and one would welcome, any practical suggestion for reducing the number. I myself think that a solution of the difficulty will come when the medical profession discovers, that, with the invention of the motor car, a new kind of, drunkenness has come into the world. At present, the doctors frequently test the errant motorist for alcoholic drunkenness, but they never think of testing him for speed drunkenness —a far more dangerous condition on a modern arterial road. Few but the old-fashioned get drunk on beer, wine, and whisky nowadays. Millions of the new-fashioned, however, get drunk on speed. The symptoms are an extraordinary feeling of over-confidence, an exhilaration in taking risks that no sober man would take, a wild passion for pursuing the car in front as though it were an enemy that must be caught at all costs. As soon as this is recognised as a' serious physical disability, some medical inventor will no doubt be able to provide us with an instrument .that will measure speed-intoxication as the whatever-you-call-it measures bloodpressure. If this happens, I hope that every motorist will be compelled to wear the instrument on his arm when he drives, and that the instrument will be connected with a device which will show a red light beside the speedometer as soon as speed-intoxication begins. Then the motorist, seeing the red light,/would say to himself: “I’m

tight,” and would slow down, and drive carefully for the rest of the journey. It may be thought that, even so, the really bad motorist—the hopeless drunkard, as one might call him —would merely laugh at the red light, being prepared to deny, if challenged, that it had ever appeared. Because of the wickedness of the bad kind of speed-drunkard, I would suggest to the jnyentpr ,that he should attach to his ihstrumeiit yet another device whicli would make an indelible graph, like a' temperature chart, producible in court as evidence of the sobriety or drunkenness of the driver. If such an instrument were invented, I believe we should see a reduction of 90 per cent, in the number of motoring accidents in a single month. Until the invention of this desirable instrument, I see no hope for improvement in motoring conditions except by widening the roads and dividing them into tracks, separated by low walls, each track to be allocated to cars travelling at certain speeds. There would be a twenty-mile, a thirty-mile, a forty-milc, a lifty-mile, and a sixtymile track, each with its procession of cars travelling to their destination at the desired pace. Perhaps owing to want of space on the surface of the ground it would be better to build underground tunnels for motorists who wish to travel at more than fifty miles an hour. They would be perfectly happy in the bowels of 'the earth if only they were allowed to pass each other, and I should like the tunnels to be wide enough for that. They travel not to see the world through

which they pass, but in order to pass other cars, and this in their tunneled hell I would allow them to do. Liberty, what cars would be overtaken in thy name! But I should not mind that—underground. A CAREFUL DRIVER.

It bo thought that becaue I drive a comparatively slow car, and because I drive comparatively slowly, 1 write with envious bitterness of those who pass me on the roads. I

am, I admit, no great shakes as a driver. It is true that it was recently reported to me after a drive that a lady in the back seat of the car declared that she had felt perfect confidence in my driving. When I repeated the testimonial to one of my nieces who had -also been a passenger, all she said to me was: “You should have seen her clutching me when you put your" fear in your pocket and passed an Austin Seven.” The sneer I thought unworthy. I passed many Austin Sevens, and many Austin Sevens passed me; and, besides, I defy Sir Malcolm Campbell himself to pass some Austin Sevens going full tit). The very phrase, howevetr, suggests how the view of driving as passing other cars has affected the modern mind. Everyone is afflicted by the passing mania to some extent, though most drivers keep it under control. '1 ho real speed-drunkard, however, cannot bear not to pass, whatever the circumstances, whatever the incon-

venience to drivers coming in the opposite direction. He will roll out to the far side of the road, racing three abreast with two other cars, even though he holds up the traffic for half a mile as it comes towards him. Twice, cn Saturday last, on the Great North Road, did I save the lives of speeddrunkards of this kind —and my own into the bargain—as they swooped up into one of these three-abreast cutsin. Had they been horses in a. race, they would have been disqualified for bciing. But, being motorists, they found that everybody gave way to them lest a worse thing should befall. What I particularly dislike about these speed-drunkards is that they have no trade union feeling. I can ' understand them endangering the lives cf their enemies, the pedestrians. But 1 call a motorist a cad who endangers 1 the lives of his fellow-motorists. Still, the administration of the law gives ; I hem great privileges, and, like the ; French 'aristocracy before the Revolu- ■ tion, they, being human, abuse these !

privileges. Some of them, at least Not Lord Buckmaster and not I. If Lord Buckmaster and I drove- like, these cutter s-in, there would either be an increased death rate or a popular revolution. And, in the revolution (if, as I hope, it would take place), no cue would more richly merit the guillotine than we!' .