MOTORING AND PUBLIC SAFETY

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 4, Issue 3, 1 September 1925, Page 25

MOTORING AND PUBLIC SAFETY

jB y MAX PEMBERTON

I 'HE motor-car appears to have A taken the place of the sea serpent these days, and to have provoked a controversy almost unparalleled since the internal combustion engine was invented. Here are all the old terms of approbrium freely bandied. We read of “road hogs” and “juggernauts,” of futile speed limits and reckless driving— unfortunately, of accidents so many that the public conscience is properly shocked. In the end it all , comes back to the simple question: What are we going to do to make motoring safe? Obviously, we shall do nothing by following the suggestion of the chairman of the Highgate Bench and concentrating upon the speed li - mit. That road leads to mere absurdity. Law which does not also embody justice and sound sense is rarely effective. The idea of punishing a man for driving at thirty miles an hour upon an open road is ridiculous and will achieve nothing. We must have with us the earnest goodwill of the motoring community,- and we must so treat it that we ensure its active co-operation in anything that we do. ; I 'HE rules of safe driving are A very simple ; but some never

.. . , . learn them until after the coroner as helcl the mquest In mam*e ™ St important of them arc t t se ‘ , . Neve V *° overtake , another car upon a bend wound winch you canno, T S f e l . . , . *}»t , ? cut u, when a clear pass 15 c ou 11 • .

To sound the horn and check the speed at all cross roads. Not to apply the brakes upon a

greasy road when another car is approaching. To enter the main road from a side street at walking speed. To negotiate corners at a moderate pace, whatever the road surface may be. If we could obtain the universal observance of these rules, I believe

that what is called “the motor peril” would be at an end. It is true that something might be done by insist-

ing that none but a person physically fit should hold a motor license—but a man’s probable behaviour upon the high road can be discovered by no preliminary test whatsoever, and often it is the real experts who are the most vicious and dangerous people we have to encounter. U OPE, however, cannot be had from the examiner, nor from the imposition of the mere speed limit. But there is no reason whatever why plain-clothes policemen should not cease to indulge in police traps, and initiate a different campaign altogether. Let two of them be posted at a dangerous bend upon any Sunday morning, and let any driver who overtakes upon the bend be heavily fined and his license suspended for six months. Similarly, they make take up positions at crossroads of importance and charge every driver who ignores them. We shall settle the motor problem by mastering its perplexities and punishing the selfish, the inconsiderate and the dangerous driver. But we shall not master it until we get a clear idea of what dangerous driving really is, and endeavour to detect the offender upon the high road, and not in the screeds of the theorists.