Patience At Wheel

Northern Advocate, 24 October 1936, Page 13

Patience At Wheel

Queen Of All Virtues

We denounce the speed of motor cars because they travel faster than we were accustomed to move before the petrol-engine was invented, and we criticise this acceleration because it happens to be accompanied by a disquieting number of fatal accidents on the road, which we are apt to ascribe solely to accelerated travel (says a writer in the Manchester Guardian).

Official analyses of the accident statistics do not support this assumption. About a seventh of the annual deaths are pitiably recorded amongst young children and occur at speeds little if any higher on the average than the rates at which many cyclists now travel, aud at which all stage-coaches . once travelled. Again, police inquiries agree that only a small percentage of the accidents occur at speeds which national opinion regards as absolutely dangerous. This is a democratic country, and its consensus of opinion as translated into law by its elected representatives is that speeds up to 30 miles an hour should be permitted and even encouraged in built-up areas (subject always to modification by local or varying conditions), and, that speeds well oyer 3p an hour should be allowed on the so-called “open” roads.

An honest driver is perfectly aware of the perils connected with absolute speed. Sheer speed, by which in terms of the road we imply rates exceeding 60, can be most exhilarating to those who enjoy physical sensations, but balanced people realise that, alike in their personal and the public interest, they must apply a selfdenying ordinance on the road and eschew such pleasures except in very rare circumstances. 7 ' .

i Indulgence, Unbalanced persons indulge themselves too readily; some of us are temperamentally .unbalanced and seek the indulgence habitually, though the police records suggest that rash overindulgence is less common than is sometimes alleged. Balanced people can temporarily lose their balance under the influence of alcohol or of any form of excitement, and —oddly enough—as the result of an autointoxication which attacks some of us in the later stages of a long drive. The present writer confesses that during the last third of a 300-mile journey one of two moods always threatens him. Sometimes he becomes tired and finds the'last 100 miles wearisome; but/on rare occasions a sensation of power and arrogance assails him, and he has to guard against exceeding rational speed and taking small risks. This latter moodlds most likely to occur in an open car and may be the result of oxygenation—he may be “drunk” on fresh air and over-exhil-arated. But police records, again, suggest that such momentary loss of normal balance is rare and is not to blame for & serious percentage of accidents.

It follows that in so far as speed is to blame for accidents the culprit is relative speed rather than absolute speed. The villain of the piece is not sheer high speed, but a speed which, thopgh safe and reasonable under normal road conditions (such as 15, 20, 25 or 30 miles an hour), happens to be dangerous under the existing conditions. When a motorist drives five miles an hour faster than is sane under the governing conditions his crime is, not so much “speed” as “impatience.” Therefore the queen of virtues for all motorists is patience. Blazon this word “patience” on the tablets of the mind in letters of gold, and essay a long cross-country run with the virtue in the forefront of consciousness.

We shall find that the fidgets and buffets of the road imperil it at almost every furlong. We get stalled behind a broad-beamed motor-coach, chugging along far more slowly than we wish to drive. We get trapped behind a baby car taking station far out from the near-side kerb. We are held up behind a bevy of cyclists riding three or four abreast, A level crossing has its gates shut, and our engine ticks over for five or six minutes before a rumble and a whistle announce the arrival of a train. A couple of drovers mishandle some blundering cows. A sleepy watchman in control of the “Stop and Go” discs at a one-day road repair section displays grievous lack of intelligence.

It seems over-cautious to check aix eager car at a blind-road junction of a screened bend. Over and over again our desire to make distance conflicts with the principles of safety first. We fret and fray our tempers a dozen times in a mile. Either v/e unwillingly repress our rage and complete the journey in a state of barely suppressed irritation, tired and cross, or we end by taking chances, and anon find ourselves in some moment of acute panic stamping on the brakes, swerving wildly, and either averting disaster by a hairbreadth or, worse still, involved in some collision which may have the most serious consequences. In either case it is impatience which

is at the root of all our troubles; and impatience on the road is a matter of relative speed rather than of sheer ■absolute speed; for we can be inveterate victims of it without ever exceeding the modest and lawful speed of 30 miles an hour.

By contrast, the motorist who attains tranquility and serenity enjoys his travel and travels in safety. Moreover, his serenity is rational. He triumphs ever those temptations to scorn and ill-temper to which his hurrying brethren yield, and profits mentally and physically by his journeyings. And the fifteen minutes which angry impatience snatches from the claws of time are worthless and are invariably wasted. How does the impatient traveller spent these trumpery seconds purchased at the potential cost of his own and other lives? By fussing about the lounge of some hotel or the draw-ing-room of some house, picking up this, glancing at that, talking foolishly of the resented incidents of the road, adding to the debit balance which his folly has already created for the day. Endow us with patience, and happier men will enjoy happier travel.