ORANGE PEELS AND BANANA PEELS

In three days, three people in Paris have broken their legs. Cause of the accident: orange peel or banana peel lying on the sidewalk. And the falls caused by this rubbish are innumerable, if not all have equally serious consequences.
Is it acceptable that, in a city like Paris, such accidents are so frequent and even possible? And can nothing be done to prevent them?
We put the question to one of our police commissioners.
- There is, he tells us, an order from the police prefect, then Mr. Lépine, dated December 29, 1911, prohibiting the abandonment on the public highway of papers and rubbish of all kinds, both animal and vegetable. Unfortunately, if it was strictly observed at the time, it has fallen into disuse; the war dealt it a fatal blow.
What sanctions does it include? Contravention, report and simple police penalties, i.e. fine of 1 to 16 francs.
Are the penalties provided for more serious for plant debris, which is dangerous to passers-by, than for simple pieces of paper, which are just unsightly?
They are the same. But if only they were applied!...
In England, where our current police prefect is going to study the traffic rules applied in London, throwing rubbish on the public highway is punishable by a fine of one pound sterling.
In Switzerland, in the Netherlands, identical penalties.
But, in England, no more than in Switzerland or Holland, there is no example of fines being imposed for such offences. It is not that the regulations are not applied there. Simply, it would not occur to anyone to commit an offence.
The same is true in the United States. There, the penalties vary according to the cities and can go as far as imprisonment. At a time when traffic has become so difficult in our congested capital, when the public authorities are concerned with improving the lot of the pedestrian and protecting him from the dangers of the street, could they not, by strict regulation, avoid this other danger: the banana skin or the orange peel?
They do not have them in England. Why should we have them in France?

F. P.