TRAFFIC DRAMAS
Things Seen

At the perilous bend of the Place de la Madeleine, coming from the boulevards to turn into the Rue Royale, I engaged the 5 C. V. at the rope, gently skimming the refuge, this lifeline for pedestrians, this dangerous rock for motorists.
At that moment, braving the invading flow of vehicles, a representative of the police force insinuated himself through the four-wheeled vehicles, and extended a conciliatory arm, ending in a stick. Like an orchestra conductor who, marking a fermata, stops his concert for a moment. The soft murmur of horns and horns calmed down.
I had a taxi on my right, one of those red taxis, whose fateful letter and number inspire all drivers with a just terror.
As soon as the conductor's baton was lowered, my friendly neighbor on the right, cornered by my humble cart and another car on his right, did not hesitate. Instead of waiting to pass until I had started, he coldly jumped forward, deliberately scratching my wing, and sped off while mumbling an insult...
Stupor had nailed me to the spot. However, I had time to take down the number of the red taxi. And, leaning my head toward the officer who had contemplated this spectacle with a quiet serenity, I said to him:
- Did you see?
This question displeased him, and politely, he answered me:
- No, sir, I saw nothing.;
- How? I asked furiously.
And it was then that the police officer, having stopped me (no! let's be reassured! He only stopped my car...) spoke to me in the following extraordinary language:
- You see, sir, for your information, you should never say to an officer: "Did you see?" We only see what we want, and it is enough for a client to try to influence us for it to upset us. "Did you see?" that means: "He's the one who's wrong." Now, I don't want to say anything.
- But, I said, when the obvious...
- Oh! the obvious, said my interlocutor in uniform, with a very disillusioned smile, you know, the obvious doesn't exist.
And as he saw that his speech left me dreaming, he confided in me, in the tone of the most cordial confidence:
- I'll explain it to you, sir. We don't want to take responsibility for accidents. Then, finding that he had perhaps gone a little too far in including all his colleagues in this same reserve, he corrected himself:
- In any case, I don't want to take sides.
- So, I retorted, if you, sworn civil servants, when we happen to find one of you at the scene of an accident, refuse to testify and establish the responsibility of each, who do you want to testify? And how do you expect the insurance companies to find their way around it?
He made a gesture of indifference, and continued his theories:
- You understand, it's too annoying to be called as a witness in insurance cases. You have to fill out a pile of papers, make a pile of paperwork, and from report to report, you waste a lot of time. And then it's complicated, it's long, it never ends.
At the end, I was getting really angry. Is this how we are protected against reckless drivers? And I said to the emulator of Pontius Pilate:
-You have some good ones! That's what you're here for! It's your job, for heaven's sake!

In front of my anger, he darkened, agreed to take out his notebook, and was preparing to draw up a report, wearily. But I saw from his dark look that it was dangerous to force his hand and that I even risked that he would put everything on my back in his report. -Keep it, keep it, I told him. And I left…

SERGE VEBER.