RECKLESS HABIT

Manawatu Times, Volume LII, Issue 3615, 16 September 1927, Page 10

RECKLESS HABIT

DRIVING PAST CORNERS,

Safely! So much has been written and so much has been said on this subject that it has developed into a bromide. Traffic problems, reckless drivers, jay-walking—these are daily subjects of the editorial page and still form the major cause of the accident toll that supplies the headlines for the Monday morning paper, says an American journal.

-"The commonest cause of automobile mishap is a reckless habit of otherwise cautious drivers. Driving past blind intersections is the j basic difficulty. Until operators of motorcars come to realise that every intersection presents its particular hazard until every driver keeps within the legal limits of speed in danger zones. th n heavy toll will still be with us. More than 150,000 persons have been killed in automobile accidents in the' last decade. Forty-two thousand of these met death in the last two years. This appalling total is not’ a libel on the automobile, it is rather a reflection on the intelligence of the average driver.

Why does the average driver show a for the law? Because, perhaps, he has a friend who has influence with the authorities: because ho has knowledge of citations that were “fixed,” * because through the laxity cf the Courts and the political intrigues of the police he has come to look upon a "tag” not as a thing to be ashamed of but rather that of which he'should “be proud. Why? Because it enables him to show his ability to have "things arranged,” so that the sting of the “tag” is entirely removed. ' * '‘ ■ If we are to have regulations, lot us see that they arc enforced. There ishouid be no favouritism for such procedure defeats the whole purpose of law and order.