The Daily News. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1911. MOTORS AND FURIOUS DRIVING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 90, 6 October 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1911. MOTORS AND FURIOUS DRIVING.

The citizen who jumps for his life once or twice a week in our public streets is very glad when ;l motorist is fined for furious driving. The motorist himself is generally so constituted that he believes he is achieving some kind of distinction by getting a great pace out of his car. The society papers persist in pictorially admiring the man who sits in a car that travels a mile and a half a minute. The man in the ear i appears to believe that he is responsible for the speed. In reality, he is no more responsible for it than the hod carrier is responsible for the beauty of St. Paul's Cathedral. One may assume that a motorist, other than a hired man, it a man of means, and that a line of £3 is merely an amusing interlude and an acknowledgment that he is a "devil of a fellow." In other countries than this the motorist sometimes gets his due. and the consequence is the foreign public is jumping less frequently and is not being killed in such large numbers. Who ever heard of a ''police trap" in New Zealand? The idea of "sticking up" a car with a wire or two across the road never seems to occur to the most brilliant inspector. The Swiss method is unthinlyible. The new Swiss law enacts that the motorist who is convicted of driving at a furious pace shall have his car confiscated by the police authorities and held in custody for three calendar months. During these three months the chauffeur is not permitted to drive any ear, and, it may be presumed, when he again takes the road, he is less homicidal. The public in this country allows one person in a car to dominate its streets. The public .seldom complains. It docs not, for instance, form vigilance committees to prevent car-owners from also owning the streets. Jt meekly jumps from under the front wheels of the motor-car. and watches with more or less admiration the dashing car whose syren plavs the first bar of the Dead Afarch from "Saul" as it tears down the street to take its owner to his destination. While the public- refuses to take a hand, and the police opens one eye once in six months, the motorist will continue to own the public highway.