The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1921-06-14
INEVITABLE

lDrulSed up, ana even at LAlS WrltlnS
three of them may be dead, was in
evitable. Not especially for this par
ticular party but for some one. The
trouble is with these horrible acci-
dents, that is we call them accidents,
but they are not, is that they always
result in the worst injury to the inno-
cent. In this case we are told that a
little cnild riding on the rear seat of
the big car with the protection of the
mother, is thrown through the wind
shield and badly injured, and, as we
say at this writing, possibly dead.
Of course the railroad will be
blamed for the tragedy. The rail-
road should have made that opening
under the tracks as the agreement
calls for, and it should have been done
long ago. The railroad is not to he
excused for it's part, but the man who
was driving that car must have been
going at very high rate of speed,
and of course could not make the
sudden curve that is in the road at
this place, and could not stop the car
in time to avoid the impact with the
timbers of the trestle which caused
the damage. This is another argu-
ment the road builders will bring up
for a straight road, but if the driver
of this car had known the road, he
would probably have slowed down a
little at the approach of the curve,
and if he did not know is so much the
more reason for slowing down, and If
he had been driving within the limit
of the law he could have stopped his
car in time to make the curve, be-
cause the approach to the turn from
the end at which he was approaching
is UP grades and he could have seen,
the turn in time. But we hold that
we are not building roads for reckless
drivers like that, and if they want to
take chances of such speed then they,
must suffer the consequence, if we
permit them to drive that way and do
not protect them from themselves.
And, therefore, the railroad should
not be held to account for the injur-
les. The driver of that car, whoever,
he lis, is the one responsible for the
accident. Of course, he will say that
he was not driving very fast. They
all say that, but in this case we un-
derstand that he admits he was going
thirty miles the hour. A piece of the
timber on the railroad trestle was
torn off and the Dig car is a complete
pile of rubbish. The wonder is any
life of the six or more passengers
was saved.
We drove along the road near by
just about an hour after the accident
and stopped, but did not go down to
see the ruins. We felt that some one
had been killed or badly mangled, and
did not care to look upon such a
scene. There were some forty or
fifty, cars already assembled there to
look upon it, and it was well for them
to have seen it, because it was the
picture which may befall any of us
who venture Oh the road in these
times of the speeders, because it is
really dangerous for the careful man,
and the driver who thinks of not 60
ing more than 20 miles the hour, to
drive out on any of the good roads
that we are building.
Of course accidents will happen to
the most careful, but when you get on
the road where there are many others
and run up your speed to thirty and
forty and fifty miles the hour you are
courtlg trouble, and it will accept
your enticing if you just keep it up,
and if it only affected the man who
was doing the courting it would not
be so bad, but it is generally the IL
nocent who suffer. For that reason,
and the additional reason that it
makes it difficult to keep up good
road, we have been insistent in our
pleas for the officers of the law to
patrol the roads and save the. drivers
from themselves, and save the lives of
the innocent, and also save the road
We were told on Sunday that at
this same sharp curve not more than
a month ago another driver came
along the road in the night time, and
instead of making the turn so as to
go under the trestle, why he just went
on up the side of the railroad. He
was going so fast he could not even
attempt to turn, and the result was
that he was very badly bruised up,
but not so seriously as those in the
car on Sunday, because he did not