DRIVER'S NOTEBOOK

Be careful... Slow down

Another very painful accident! A car on the road to Deauville is going full throttle at 120 an hour... Another is coming from a side lane and running at full throttle! (Appalling collision; dead and injured people lie in the middle of the debris. Whose fault is it? Let's not look for the little beast, let's not gossip about the precise rules of the highway code — which no one observes. The fault? It is entirely up to the two drivers, both of whom were walking at “open tombs”, their feet on the accelerator and their eyes fascinated towards an ever receding horizon, a goal that never comes close enough!

Come on, gentlemen, please be a little careful, a little slower. And, righteous gods! why this madness of speed? To see nothing of the landscape, to be slapped by the wind, blinded by the dust, stupefied by the jolts of the road. No, once again, the automobile, a marvelous means of transport, a unique tool for tourism, was not created for that.

Take the blue train or the airplane, all of you who want to go from Paris to Deauville in less than three hours, it will be much more comfortable and much safer for you. Leave the road to the real tourists, to the upstreams of nature.

Finally, the very future of motoring is at stake - because it is certain that if accidents continue to multiply in this way, through the fault of madmen, the public authorities will one day or another be led to take all tough measures.

We will be well advanced.

AUGUSTE WIMILLE