By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, July 17, 1937.
“Policemen,” said Jimmie Frise, “always ought to be in motor cars; not on motor cycles.”
“The law,” I disagreed, “is a game. If you can see a cop on a motorcycle, it’s fair. It is conceded in all civilized countries that cops should not be allowed to hide.”
“Modern traffic,” said Jim, who was watching me steer my car amidst the hot and anxious outward bound traffic of Saturday noon, “modern traffic has got past the amusement stage. It’s a game no longer. Now that the Ontario speed limit has been increased from 35 miles an hour on highways to 50 miles, and in cities and towns from 20 up to 30 miles an hour, a strange and grim psychological factor has emerged.”
“What’s that?” I inquired.
“When the law was 35 miles an hour,” said Jim, “hardly anybody obeyed it. But the knowledge that we were exceeding the limit gave us all a margin of caution. We were alert. Being already guilty of one breach of the law, to wit, going faster than 35, we were a little cautious about breaking it any other way. We were wide awake in the first place for speed cops. We had a guilty conscience, even if only a subconscious or semi-conscious guilty conscience. It made us careful, alert.”
“I follow you,” I confessed.
“Now that the law is 50,1” went on Jim, “that guilty conscience has evaporated. The only sense of guilt we have is when we are driving less than 50, and we wonder if other drivers are put out with us for not keeping up with the Joneses”.
“I believe you’re right,” I admitted, stepping slightly on the gas to increase my speed from 34 to 37.
“Now, a sense of guilt,” explained Jim, “is one of the greatest and most humane of civilized forces. It is our general sense of guilt that makes us kindly, tolerant and good natured towards our fellow men.”
A large blue car swerved angrily past us and the lady in the near seat turned and said something bitter to me. I couldn’t hear her words but if I put the right meaning to the shape of her mouth, that lady certainly is no lady.
“See?” cried Jim. “Before the law was changed, her sense of guilt would have prevented her from cursing you. Now she is free to call you names if you aren’t doing at least 50.”
“Psychology is a funny thing,” I mused.
“No, it’s human nature is funny,” agonized Jim. “With no need for caution under 50 miles an hour as far as cops are concerned, old rattletrap cars that should not ever exceed 30 miles an hour are going to be going as near 50 as they can. And every instant they are on the road they are a menace to human life.”
“There goes one now,” I said, as a shabby old top-heavy sedan with narrow tires of the vintage of 1925, slithered past us and did a sort of Charlie Chaplin skid to get straight on the pavement again.
To Miss the Old Fear
“Then,” said Jim, “plenty of drivers of perfect cars, as far as mechanism is concerned, but who intellectually are incapable of driving more than 40 miles an hour – you know, the kind of people who are clumsy and always spilling things and bumping into things are going to miss that old restraining fear of cops sorely. Such people really need that fear. Without it, they are helpless.”
“Listen to that,” I murmured, as a car behind me continued to snort its horn savagely until I got away over to the side of the pavement. And when it passed, four furious faces leaned and glared out the windows at me.
“You take the young fellow driving one of those rattletrap old cars,” said Jim. “He has, for instance, three other young people in the car with him. He is going 35, which is all the machine is capable of without swerving right off the road. When his companions egg him on to greater speed, he had, heretofore, the excuse that there is a speed cop usually on the top of the hill ahead. But now, what excuse can he offer? Will he say his car is too poor and rickety to risk any more speed? No young man could admit any such thing. So what does he do? He tries for 50 and the admiration of his companions. And just as he lurches and slithers over the top of that next hill, who does he collide with or send head over heels into the ditch but a perfectly nice lady with a carload of children, going 40 miles an hour?”
“It’s bad,” I admitted, as a car driven by a white-haired old lady zipped past me, going about 60.
“Motorcycle cops, therefore,” said Jim, “should be abolished and police should be equipped with ordinary cars of various makes and colors. So that the motorists never know but what the car behind them or the car coming towards them is police.”
“Ah,” I agreed. “A new hazard. A new fear.”
“Correct,” said Jim. “And the police should be most active on the highways, touring day and night at a brisk pace, watching for cutter-ins, hill passers, curve passers; they should pursue and give an official warning to all drivers of old ashcans that were driving at any speed that made them wobble and lurch. Fines for recklessness should never be less than $252, so that for all fools there would be a real terror of coming too fast around curves or attempting to pass without reasonable distance being given.”
“We must put some sort of fear into them,” I declared, for now we were outside the city and on to a wider strip of pavement so that the traffic behind, which had been fairly patient, now began to get excited like lions at feeding time at the zoo and start to zip and cut and swerve and duck in their anxiety to get ahead.
“What’s the good of their doing that?” demanded Jim. “Don’t they realize that there is a line-up for miles ahead of them? What good is it going to do them to scare the wits out of you by cutting in ahead of you with two seconds to spare, when they are going to have to keep that up all the way to Muskoka?”
“It’s a nervous sort of thrill. I suppose,” I said. “It’s like gambling. Like roulette. They would go to sleep if they had to drive steadily. Only by hop-scotching around like that do they keep awake.”
“I wish there were double the cops,” said Jim, “and all incognito in plain cars. That would stop those St. Vitus dance3 drivers. We ought to adopt the system of having a big red enamel patch painted on the back of every car that is convicted of reckless driving. With three patches on your car, 30 miles an hour is your absolute limit. You’d feel like a marked man then, and behave.”
“Look Who’s Ahead of Us”
“Boy, did you see that?” I breathed as two cars, chasing each other at 50 miles an hour, both dove back into the line ahead of us to make way for a big passenger bus coming tearing along in the opposite direction at 50, too.
I had to change gears on account of the sudden stoppage the cutting in of the two cars ahead had created. Minute by minute as we got out into the country it grew worse. Those who knew the law was 50 miles an hour wanted to go 50, and were indignant at all those who didn’t. They kept cutting out and in and charging ahead until in a little while the congestion ahead of us was so bad we were not only slowed to 30 miles but gradually formed a solid line, and frequent dead stops were necessary.
“Oh,” I snarled, “where are the cops?”
“The only way to travel nowadays,” said Jim, “is by aeroplane. No self-respecting citizen will stay on the roads much longer.”
It was hot. It was gassey. It was nerve-racking and on-edgey. The farther people were behind us the more anxious they were to get ahead. And every time the down traffic left space, 40 cars behind us leaped out of line and formed a double line, racing past us until down-coming trucks or cars forced them back into our line; and with fury we had to make room for them. It meant a stop almost every time.
“Get out into the swim,” said Jim, at last. “You jump, too. Everybody else is doing it.”
“Not me,” said I.
“It’ll thin out a few miles north,” coaxed Jim. “The sooner we get there, the sooner this strain will be over.”
“I’m safer where I am,” I said. “In line.”
But in a few moments, the car that had been ahead of me for several miles decided it was getting too thick and it made the jump and got into the scramble.
“Not me,” I cried triumphantly. “Look at whose ahead of us now!”
“It’s cops,” said Jim.
And sure enough, in the car now immediately ahead of us, were the round heads and flat caps of two large cops sitting the stiff way cops sit at the wheel of a car.
“They’re only doing 32,” said Jim looking at my speedometer.
“It’ll do me too,” I said, settling comfortably in back of the cops.
“Now,” chuckled Jim, “watch these cutter-inners when they see the cops.”
But it made no apparent difference. The minute down traffic left a hole, out leaped about ten times more cars than the hole would accommodate and the minute the down traffic came level, all these birds had to scrunch back into line and everybody had to grab and brake and swear and change gears.
“I guess they don’t see they’re cops,” said Jim.
“Why don’t the cops do something, instead of just jogging along?” I demanded hotly.
“Pass them,” advised Jim.
“Not me,” I said. “I respect law and order. Those cops are at least setting an example of orderly driving.”
“And nobody even looks at them,” scoffed Jim.
“What good could they do?” he went on. “In a jam like this?”
“One of them could stand on the running board,” I suggested, “and hold out his hand to warn those behind not to try to pass. In ten minutes the congestion ahead would sort itself out and we could all do 40. It’s that crowding ahead that makes us all go slow.”
“Don’t let’s talk about it,” said Jim.
“Very well,” I said.
With a Baleful Look
So we continued, in regular series of mixups, of grinding and braking and starting and slowing and horns blowing and swearing and cussing as the impatient miles went by. Every time there was a jam-up and cars head would try to cut in ahead of me I would blow my horn furiously in the hope of rousing those two cops ahead from their lethargy.
“What’s the matter with them?” I shouted. “Sitting there. Like dummies. With all this murder going on.”
“Hire a hall,” said Jim.
He sank down in his seat and closed his eyes.
We came to a town. Jim woke and sat up. In the business block, traffic stopped dead for a minute, and one of the cops in the car ahead prepared to get out.
Heavily he backed out the car door. He was in a khaki uniform and with him, hugged to his breast, he backed out a large brass horn.
“Pah-ha-ha,” roared Jim. “A bandsman. A tuba player.”
“Well, I’ll be….” I admitted a little ruefully.
“There you go,” laughed Jim, “always taken in by appearances. Abusing the cops and it was just a couple of lads from the town band.”
Traffic began to move again and we tooled through the town and the minute we got outside, the panic began again, cars leaping, swerving, ducking.
“Well,” asked Jim, “are you going to stick behind the piccolo player?”
“Heh, heh, heh,” I said, taking a quick look behind and then swerving out.
I stepped on the gas and leaped past the bandsman’s car.
“Yah,” I roared out past Jim, “yah, you big windbag, what are holding up traffic for?”
“Nix,” hissed Jim. “It is a cop!”
And it was.
“Ow,” I said, ducking back into line. “It was a cop, giving a guy a lift from the band.”
“Ow,” said Jim, craning his neck to look in the mirror. “He’s after you.”
In a minute, I saw a car creep alongside. It’s horn tooted sharply. I looked. The cop, with a baleful north of Ireland look in his green eyes, was signalling me languidly to pull off to the side.
I took to the shoulder carefully, so as to allow the line behind to pass. The cop pulled in ahead of me, got out and walked back, hitching his belt.
“What was that,” said the cop, resting his elbow on my door, “you said to me as you passed?”
“Huh?” I asked. “Said to you? I wasn’t speaking to you.”
“Oh, yes you was,” said the cop. “What was it about me blocking traffic? Big wind-bag or something?”
“Oh, that?” I laughed heartily. “Oh, that? Oh. I was speaking to my friend here, my friends, he’s deaf, see? I have to shout at him. Oh, ha, ha, did you think… Oh, ha ha, Jimmie,” I shouted in Jim’s ear, “the policeman thinks I was shouting at him.”
“Did he?” said Jim.
“Yes,” I roared in Jim’s ear. “Isn’t that funny?”
“Heh, heh, heh,” laughed Jim, fairly heartily.
“Well, anyway,” said the cop. taking a long slow look at me. “I don’t like the way you cut in and out in traffic. You’ll be the death of somebody if you keep that up.”
“Why, officer,” I cried, “everybody is cutting in and out. Just look at them.”
“Yes.” said the constable, “but not right under the nose of a policeman. I’d better see your driver’s license, mister.”
And he took down all my particulars, tested my lights, brakes, horn and wanted to see my spare light bulbs which I promised him I’d buy at the next town. And all the time the traffic fought and snarled past us.
And then he got in his car and drove ahead of us 24 miles at 28 miles an hour.
Editor’s Notes:
- Ontario’s first province-wide speed limit on rural highways was introduced in 1903 at 15 mph (24 km/h). The speed limit was increased to 25 mph (40 km/h) by the early 1920s and increased further to 35 mph (56 km/h) by the late 1920s. The speed limit on most rural highways was increased to 50 mph (80 km/h) in May 1937. During World War II, the speed limits were temporarily lowered to 40 mph (65 km/h) to conserve Canada’s fuel supplies. The next speed limit increase took place in 1959, when the speed limit for passenger cars using the new superhighways such as Highway 400 and Highway 401 was changed to 60 mph (100 km/h). ↩︎
- $25 in 1937 would be $528 in 2014. ↩︎
- St. Vitus’ Dance was diagnosed, in the 17th century as Sydenham chorea. The old term hung around for a while. ↩︎
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