| 65. "The French drive like lunatics! They don't obey traffic rules ; they don't even use common sense." Most Frenchmen are probably not as skillfiil drivers as most Americans. Their traffic rules and system are inferior to ours. But foreigners who drive in America are astonished by the speed, daring and recklessness of American driving. The statistics on automobile accidents and deaths in the United States are nothing for us to be proud of. Even allowing for the greater amount of cars we have and nthe greater amount of driving we do, our automobile accident rate is the highest in the world. A foreigner in Paris, like a foreigner in New York, might well feel like the farmer who spent most of his vacation in a big city jumping out of the way of cars. "Darn these furriners!" he cried. "They even put spot-lights on their automobiles so's they can find the pedestrians to run down at night !" |