“Real progress on the roads? » asked the Work, the very morning of the big event on the Touraine circuit.

In the evening a dispatch and a letter arrived. The dispatch announced to us the inevitable accident: fifteen spectators injured by a car, which had absent-mindedly entered the crowd. The letter said: “Yes, it is useful to do 180 an hour, and even 200. Study and progress of engines. But it is not useful to inflict on the readers of the Work two columns on Maurras and Daudet... » I ask our estimable subscriber for forgiveness. Because it is one of our subscribers who writes this; he's even a car dealer. It is not at all superfluous, when the opportunity presents itself, to devote an article to the reactionary danger, and, if this danger is called Maurras and Daudet, let us not hesitate to print their names at the risk of their do a little advertising. We must even rejoice that the reaction is represented and symbolized by this odious and contemptible couple. If there is no longer any need to talk about it today, it is precisely because we have said everything that needs to be said. We have often repeated that in our eyes these men were not colleagues, but criminals. French justice has finally proven us right, since it has made the leader of the gang a common law convict. Let's move on. But let's move on to a moderate pace. This is no reason, Mr. Josse, to do 200, like that. Instead, ask the fifteen victims of the last circuit what they think. They will answer with me that high-speed tourism requires two conditions: 1° a car; 2° a road. We have the car, we don't have the road. To perfect one while neglecting the other is to increase the risk of death. As long as we enjoy current roads, where the responsible minister authorizes cows to graze freely, we must, unless we are crazy, look for ways to reduce, and not increase, the speed of mechanical vehicles. If I dared to say all my thoughts, I would even allow myself to insinuate that the taste for dizzying racing is a kind of sadism which has nothing in common with honest tourism. But it is better not to aggravate my case, and to stick to observing that at the point where the automobile industry has reached, whose progress was admirable, what we lack is not perfected engines, it is are safe roads. So give up motor competitions for the moment, and do road competitions. Above all, make suitable roads, where fans of lightning speed can enjoy it with the minimum of risk for themselves - and without danger for others. Perhaps we will have to come to realize that automobile traffic will soon require its network of special lanes, prohibited to carts, pedestrians and other animals. Why wouldn't we make rubberized paths for cars like we made railway tracks for trains? America has already tried it, it seems. In any case, admitting that ox carts and cars that do 200 can continue to circulate on the same roads is truly a homicidal paradox. Count the accidents this summer.

Gustave Téry