PUTTING A CHECK ON MOTOR ACCIDENTS

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 4, Issue 6, 1 December 1925, Page 56

PUTTING A CHECK ON MOTOR ACCIDENTS

f i 'HE vastly greater numbers of -*■ cars and motor-cycles on the road have naturally resulted in many more accidents. The sequel is a demand that drivers shall not be allowed upon the road until they have been officially passed as competent. This is very difficult to put into practice. Road safety does not depend on skill; it depends on what is known as road sense. A driver may be the most skilful in the world, yet he may lose his head in an emergency and do exactly the wrong thing. I know hundreds of people who could pass any driving, mechanical, physical or mental tests to which they might be put, but with whom I would refuse to travel as a passenger, because I have the gravest doubts of their judgment in the fraction of a second which divides danger from safety. 'HE chief reason, in my opinion, why numerous smashes occur is that a large proportion of new drivers have never been on the road before, except as passengers. In the early days of motoring everyone who drove had had previous experience, either with horses or on a bicycle. They had instinctively learnt the rules of the road, and had obtained that indefinable thing, road sense.

The whole art of expert driving consists in anticipation and in the judgment of pace and distance. He who can anticipate more or less correctly the probable movements of other traffic, and can exercise accurate judgment of his and its pace, and of the distances available, will rarely be involved in an accident. Many people suggest that before a license is issued, the prospective driver should be examined as to his ability. The problem —Where is he to learn to drive? He may spend weeks driving along quiet suburban streets and country roads, but on his first excursion on to busy thoroughfares he may make all manner of mistakes. A DRIVER must learn by experience what to do and when to do it, and he can only achieve this by actually driving on main roads. The problem will have to be approached from the other endthat is, to curb the bad driver’s ebullience, and to cause him to proceed in a sedate manner. The suggestion that dangerous driving should be determined by the distance in which a car can be pulled up is scarcely practicable, as so much depends on road surface, weather conditions and the nervousness or otherwise of the driver.