MOTOR MADNESS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 151, 5 October 1910, Page 4

MOTOR MADNESS.

Although the aeroplane is at present vieing with the motor car as a slayer of men, the car still maintains its pride of place as a destroying agency. The cabled reports of the Vandenbilt and other motor races in America, if true, show the utter recklessness that seems to be part of the outfit of a true automobilist. Most insane forms of amusement or excitement come and go just as seasonably as the innocent pleasures of peg-top, ping-pong and marbles, but speed-motor-ing, to use an expressive Americanism, 'has "come to slay." It has never yet ibeen ascertained why the driver of a motor car who enters a race should be proud of winning it. The cablegrams, in remarking that "So-and-so'' was decapitated in a smash generally refers to him as "the great automobolist," in tile same way that one would talk of a great scientist or a great jockey or a great swimmer. One concludes that the element that charms the mad motorist and the crowd who watch him flash past at a mile and a-half a minute, is mere speed. A motorist does not win a rac'e. His car wins. No motorist should get a prize because 'tie has a good machine and excellent petrol. The maker of the car is the person who wins the race. If American tales of car horrors are true, it is perfectly clear that Americans have not the respect for human life that seems to be common enough in some countries. Necessarily there must be lack of supervision when numerous cars mow crowds of people down. Racing (except without permission on the roads) has not yet come .to New Zealand, and it is to be remembered that an attempt to hold a car-racing meeting in the South was frustrated by the police. Until the population is sufficiently numerous to warrant wholesale destruction by motor-car, it is hoped' the police will persevere in' welldoing. The automobile is wiping out quite a number of millionaire's sons in America. As this class of person represents one of America's cihief burdens. Providence in a car may have stepped to the rescue of the nation.