Accidents naturally flourish with the additional number of cars, for we presume that for every ten automobiles sold there is at least one buyer who is going to show the rest of the fellows how to drive like the devil. And he usually does. You can see his ilk every day in the year (when the roads are good) going through the country like a double-winged bolt out of Hades.

There is no more thought of danger in the head of such men than there is in a mushroom. He couldn’t conceive the possibility of an accident with himself at the steering wheel if the word was written in mountain-high letters right across the tip of his nose, and if he did see it he’d think it a joke of some kind. He sees a team ahead of him, but the thought that the horse might shy and step into him as he goes tearing by doesn’t come within fifteen miles of the place where he is supposed to harbor his common sense. He sees a bunch of cattle, a colony of pigs, a society of chickens, a squad of ducks, and he slows up—like thunder.

No, he goes right on, and it is only fool luck that keeps the brindle heifer from stepping in front of the car and spilling the driver along with his gasoline. The pigs do not concern him simply because they aren’t his. They couldn’t stop the machine anyway, and if half a dozen of them were killed—he "should worry." He meets another car, but instead of slowing up, he throws on more speed. It never occurs to him that the fellow in the other car might be coming home from a spree and with about as much control of the steering wheel as a four-year-old kid would have with a wheelbarrow. Again fool luck comes to the rescue and he "gets by."

When in town, such a fellow will turn street corners like a blind sow. A team or another car may be coming around the corner, but this possibility never succeeds in percolating through the London-like fog of his thinking apparatus—never!

What to do with reckless auto drivers is a serious problem. They have a way of their own that is a menace to the public, and an ordinary mortal isn’t safe in an iron-clad barn with them around performing their stunts. You can’t tell when they might break out, break in, or break your neck. Life for them is just one spurt after another.

The spectacular auto driver is all right on the speedway, but on the public thoroughfare he is a nuisance.

[04-01-03-004-0024 Fireman’s Fund Archives]