OCR Text |
Show THE MAIN TENET OF SAFETY Safety on the highway is principally an attitude of mind. Better cars and roads won't attain it. Indeed, they tend toward to-ward the opposite result. It has long been the experience that when a stretch of poor road is converted into a broad, straight smooth highway the number of accidents increase becaus motorists overestimate the safety factor. They lose the sense of caution that a poor road naturally creates and the death and injury rate booms. The same thing is true of automobiles. The manufacturers give us cars with better brakes, surer steering, more perfectly balanced bodies and we abuse them to the point where the " automobile accident rate breaks all records. The "safety attitude" isn't a particularly difficult one to develop. It is simply to drive as we like the car approaching us to drive. Don't cut comers, nor pass on curves or hills, nor drive on the wrong side of the road, nor fight for the right-of-way, nor drive so fast, you cannot stop in th assured clear distance ahead. Almost every accident, minor or severe, occurs' because someone violates these simple rules. Possibly a better phrase for safe driving would be "courteous "cour-teous driving". Discourtesy on the highway is always the friend of accidents. If you'll make up your mind to drive the wav vou think the other fellow should d rive, the accident rate will be due for a severe beating in the future. |