Beating The Train

NZ Truth, Issue 1206, 10 January 1929, Page 6

Beating The Train

JCPEED is the hand-maiden, of tragedy. ' ■ A blunt, sweeping statement, admittedly, but the awful statistics which Speed and Carelessness between them have compiled,, do , not permit l of. callow halfheartedhess.... The .accident wards of public hospitals daily receive smashed remnants of humanity : wrecked bodies of motor-cyclists ; pitifully twisted bodies of children and adults overwhelmed by some hurtling car; and humans who tried to "beat the -train": at level .crossings: , ' We moderns ' seem to be sated •with; sensation. Perhaps that is why a- certain type of motorist will read m the morning paper of some ghastly smash at a railway crossing, and m the afternoon take some friends for a ride into, the country, where an opportunity occurs for them to ■" Beat the train." .. ' If he and his friends are lucky enough to escape annihilation, he recounts his prowess at the wheel when, he returns home. - There should be a law, universal and not parochial,, requiring motorists to halt at every railroad crossing before proceeding. If people are foolish enough to take stupid .risks, then the Legislature must regulate them m their foolishness, by penalizing all those who hold life cheaply. In fine, it must save, them from themselves.