CARS ON ROADS

It's only just beginning. Every day, newspapers receive dozens of dispatches announcing the same accidents: on the road from X to Y, two cars met; on road Z... an old man was knocked down in the village of N... a car went over the parapet of a bridge...

Naturally, there is no question of chickens, ducks, geese and other bipeds known for this spirit of contradiction which pushes them to leave the embankment where they are at peace to go and be plucked by a car, which arrives in a hurry.

Faced with all these accidents, we obviously want to throw our arms to the sky and cry out that, if there were no cars, they wouldn't run over anyone. Which is fair (but I'm sure the stagecoaches must have run over almost as many chickens as a racing car). It is still very true that all the fathers who go out to travel the roads in a car do not have the dexterity of Parisian drivers, and that all the young people who go out to play sports on the roads do not have the prudence of fathers of families.

But we can't eliminate automobiles, can we? And we cannot impose on them a speed of eight kilometers per hour throughout France.

So, we have to manage things carefully and try to give everyone – pedestrians, drivers, chicken owners and herd drivers – habits that will make accidents less frequent.

Let us not consider that, on the roads, cars are intruders who “must be inconvenient” for a walker who is stubbornly trying to be deaf. Let us not consider the national roads as racetracks where no one has the right to risk their footing, under penalty of death. But let's order the motorist not to do anything crazy, and let's advise the old peasant woman to follow the side of the road, rather than stand in the middle.

Let's get it into everyone's heads that no one is at home on a path that belongs to the entire country. I believe that this false idea: “I am at home on the road” causes half of the accidents.

Now, that there are huge reforms to be made, that we have to adapt our entire road network to modern life, that's another kettle of fish... In the meantime, let's not forget that if accidents depend a little on the roads, they also depend a lot on men.

FERNAND DIVOIRE