The Police and the Motorist
- The decision of the Metropolitan Police to constitute itself officially the motorist's friend, even though it be a critieal and candid friend, has been welcomed by the motoring associations, which, on laehalf of their members naturally prefer admonition and constructive advice to prosecution. Any steps that may lead to an improvement in the standard of driving and a reduction in the number of accidents are worth trying, and there are certain forms of bad driving, such as failure to keep reasonably close to the near side of the road, which call emphatically for rebuke, but not, as a rule, for court pro- ceedings. It is eminently wise, moreover, that the police who arc to be entrusted with these new and sometimes delicate duties should be given a special training in good driving themselves. The police are certainly better employed in this way than in penalising minor parking offences and the like, but there must be no suggestion that any case of really dangerous or even merely careless driving will be visited with nothing worse than rebuke and counsel at the roadside. The new experiment will be watched with interest, and its value may prove enough to justify it. But on roads which arc palpably unequal to the traffic they haVe to carry, accidents will continue to happen, on a scale which nothing short of double-tracking will much reduce.
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