LESS TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 172, 11 October 1927, Page 7

LESS TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS

SHORT SKIRTS MUST GO It is evident that something must be done about short skirts. Even now they cause half the traffic accidents. What will happen when ultra-modern fashions start to arrive, nobody knows. A ticklish subject—very. Perhaps dangerous: One treads; on very thin ice. The ladies must not be offended. Yet one would be guilty of dereliction of duty toward humanity if he neglected to notice these skirts. It is all very well for the ladies themselves. Hygienic, and all that. But look at the mess they make of traffic. It is heard said that we are used to them now, and that it takes a long skirt to make anyone look. That’s all rot. Just take a walk along Queen Street and stop at any intersection. You see some fascinating little thing trip across the street and get into a tram. Even the traffic cops and policemen are worried. The ladies, themselves, most critical judges, stop and turn and mutter something that sounds like “brazen hussy.” (Their skirts are just as short, if they only knew.) Gentlemen pause, jay walkers turn their heads, motorists slacken speed, while the unconscious (?) cause of it all demurely crosses her legs in the tram and powders her little nose. Now can you see the result? You can’t get away from it. It gives you a headache, a drive through the city like this. No matter wherever you go, you see them. No matter how much you are on your guard, you are caught. No matter who you are, your mind is distracted. It’s the same everywhere. The short skirts must go! Nothing else for it! Here are traffic experts and police commissioners, and all the brains of the world thinking of careful schemes, and ready to spend enormous sums of money in an effort to banish the frightful congestion in the cities of the world. Yet they haven’t thought of the simplest remedy. It only needs Auckland’s example, and the problem is solved. Let Parliament pass an Act to prevent skirts being more than one foot off the ground. Think of the relief. The ladies will sail down the street to their shopping twice as quickly. Nobody will look at them. The traffic cop will be able to use all his energy in getting traffic across intersections. The critical ladies won’t stop in a bunch criticising. The jay walking sheiks won’t suffer neck and eye strain. And the motorist, what a haven the roads will be for him! He will be able to advance quickly and surely toward his destination, looking neither to the right nor to the left. Even the ladies would welcome such a law. because it is said on reliable authority that fashion may be fashion, but it’s mighty cold when the winter winds frisk about. A chap like Mussolini would do the job in a minute.