"SWITCHING-OFF" IN FRANCE.

Marlborough Express, Volume LX, Issue 229, 28 September 1926, Page 6

"SWITCHING-OFF" IN FRANCE.

( XIMPULSORY DIMM 1 NG . Oue of tlie things tliey do not do better in Erance, as many British tourists have found, is to require motorists to switch off their headliglits when meeting ' another car. The practice is absolutely compulsory under the new "Code de la Route," but lias entirely changed the views of those who formerly were not altogether oonverted to Ihe heliet that switching off is nore dangerous than brilliant iights. Oompulsion admits of no discretiona.rv action, a tui therein lieis tlie evil. If a single car be driven along a. narrow lane and meets another single car, it may or may not be advisable for the driver oi eacli to reduce the power oi his illumiiiation, but a perfectly farcial state of affairs is produced on a road sucli as that between Nice and Cannes, when there' is an almost continuous procession of cars, motor cycles, and phsh bicycles. . It is utterly impossible for a driver, if alone, to control ihe switch and attend to his driving as well, and it is quite as niuch as he and the front passenger can manage in eonj unction . The result iis that the driver's eves are 'perpetually adapting themselves to a change of focus, and at'any moment a push cyclist, showing no red liglit, may be overtaken unobserved uriti 1 lie is all but under the front vheels. 'The S'ooner the French Government rescinds the compulsory clause in the "Code de la Route" the better.