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Show Are You As Safe As Your Car? (Editor's note: The Center for Safetly Education at New York University is the only institution in-stitution of higher education in the country which is conducted con-ducted for the specific purpose of teaching teachers to teach safety.) i In the past two decades there 1 have been some marvelous improvements im-provements in the motor car it-I it-I self, but no such improvements are' shown by the driver. Drivers Driv-ers haven't changed much from the days when they operated twenty-five-horse-power cars at speeds of thirty miles an hour. In my article in the American magazine, I stated that faulty drivers and ." pedestrians cause nine-tenths of all the accidents. This includes not only drivers whose skill Ih'as igrown irusty through disuse," but also those who are intent on going places in a hurry, absentminded motorists mot-orists whose minds aren't, on their business, and those who are emotionally upset and quite literally d6n't know where they are going. 9 Out of Ten Preventable Nine out of ten smashups would be prevented if we could wipe out these underlying psychological psy-chological causes. Howe v e r, emotions can't be banished by a mere appeal to reason'. They derive their . power from pressure pres-sure deen within t.hp mind l- depressing effects upon our reactions, re-actions, vision, and good judgement. judge-ment. Driving requires the best of our psychophysical skills; alcohol al-cohol which cut down this effectiveness effec-tiveness breeds accidents. Second place would be given giv-en to anxiety, worry, and anger. People who get upset over things and are worried or angered ang-ered tend to be accident prone. When they run into difficult situations on the highway, they tend to lose their heads and disaster dis-aster follows. Daydreamers Another group of drivers who give trouble are daydreamers whose minds are not on the job. Driving is a full-time occupation occupa-tion that requires all of our attention. at-tention. We are also finding a large number of accidents due to extremes ex-tremes of fatigue, especially at night. It takes only a fraction of a second's loss of concious-ness concious-ness to cause a bad crash. Impatience also contributes to the toll of accidents. People who jump traffic lights, pull out of line, or take chances in passing cars on a curve or a hill belong in this class. Similarly, Simil-arly, bravado the desire to show off contributes to a lot of trouble. Bad Habits , Most of us have bad driving habits of which we are not aware. Like Topsy, "they just growed." Some of these come from bad psychological attitudes that have been described above. Others come from faulty driving skills and a lack of knowledge of the rules of the road. Contrary Con-trary to popular impression, the driver who figures in repeated auto accidents is not dumb, clumbsy, or slow in reactions. ' Super-intelligent people don't make super-drivers, they cause cause more trouble than the normals. Physically disabl e d persons such as amputee veterans vet-erans and those with hearing defects appear to have a better safety record than non-disabled. All of this goes to show that bad driving attitudes poor sportsmanship, discourtesy, impatience im-patience inattention, and the like are more important . as causes of accidents than lack of driving skills. These bad attitudes at-titudes and practices must be corrected if tragedies on out highways are to be reduced. Here are some things that we will have to get rid of to cut down accidents: First, I would give top billing to intoxication, for alcohol has |