"The Great Automotive Game”

Southland Times, Issue 22993, 12 September 1936, Page 19

" The Great Automotive Game”

Careless and Selfish Driving This is the second of a series of twelve articles from The Christian Science Monitor covering practically every phase of owning and operating a car with economy and safety. On the golf course the self-convicted boor is the chap who pounds right through someone else’s foursome; who replaces no divots; who neglects to shout "Fore!" Everybody knows how to place him! But change the course from a clipped meadow to a macadam highway and what a change comes over many an erstwhile decent sportsman! The careful driver at the tee becomes, all too often, the careless and selfish driver at the wheel. And usually it isn’t because he—or she—is naturally rude. More often it’s because he —or she —has misunderstood the rules of the game. He would not think of calling himself a golfer until he not only learned how to play but how to behave on a course. But how many of his kind presume to use the highways without knowing how to behave thereon? How many automotive sportsmen need drilling in the rules of the road? Take that angle of driving called “saving.” The unskilled and the unmannered both reveal themselves there. They both think that “saving” means speed. They confuse things. They’d rather save seconds than save lives, money or hard looks. So the lights flash, and they’re off, weaving in and out of traffic, cutting off other drivers, clipping corners, dodging pedestrians, ignoring safety signs, and leaving a wake of bitter thoughts and words. They prove themselves boors of the highway; and no matter how cleverly they chisel seconds they are unskilled. They prove they don’t know the game. And gentlemen drivers watch their crude behaviour and mentally tag them in the “thumbs down” category. They either do not know, or else they ignore, the statistics which show that the fundamental cause of most highway accidents is undue haste. So they make themselves as cordially disliked as do those selfish drones who poke alon gin the middle of the road at 20 miles an hour and set the stage for the accidents precipitated by impatient drivers who try to break the “deadlock,” perhaps thereby adding to the total of 4100 children under 15 who were killed in America last year, or 1,090,000 persons injured, of 400,000,000 dollars insurance paid out, of 2,000,000,000 economic loss. This is the high cost of saving seconds! The high cost of poor sportsmanship, of highway boorishness! The high cost of not learning the ride that on the highway, gentlemen and ladies never wager their' own time against other people’s lives and property.