Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-12-26

The back-seat driver is well known in
automotive circles, but how about the
left-hand adviser among pedestrians?
Any one who has ever attempted to
escort a woman through busy traf1c
lanes knows something about this.
She hangs trustingly to your manly
left arm, pulling on it as If it were q
steering wheel.
You start right, she drags left.
You go left, she steers right.
Just as you decide that it is better to
be run over by the 3-ton truck rather
than by the 5-ton one, she seems to de-
eide that perhaps the latter is the one
to dodge, after all.
So away you two go right into the
middle of the traffic lane, with cars
roaring along on both sides. some SKIM
ming your right sleeve, others raising
the dust on the other side.
y y X
If there is anything more perplexing
than being marooned in the middle OF
busy modern street, we do not know
what it is at the present writing.
Women rush into this situation more
agreeably than men, we have observed.
The average man thinks twice before he
puts himself into such a position, but
most women do not consider the matter
at all.
They Just rush out, until stopped by
the line of cars. We refer especially, of
course, to those streets which have no
signal lights.
We have noticed, too that the older
woman is, and the less agile she Is,
the Surer she is to put herself at the
mercy of rushing motor cars.
We wish the world had not gotten
into the habit of speaking of automo-
biles as impersonal things. 1t is the
fashion to write and think of them as
cars, when it would be better for all
concerned II they were regarded as men
in cars, which is what they really are.
car, of itself. is inert; 1t takes a hui
man being to VitaliZe it.
Yet we are so in the habit of think
ing of men in cars as simply cars, that
We rush headlong into traffic streams as
if there were something utterly imper-
sonal about the whole affair, and that
no harm could come to us from so
much steel.
The tendency Is to become confused
when faced with two rushing lines of
automobiles. We have seen strong men
as we'll as weak women shrink, start
one way, then turn back, or dart
another.
uC dutOLliODIlotS CdIlllOJ ICll WIldO
the pedestrian is going to do--that Is
the standard complaint of those who
drive cars. Every car owner should
remember that he, himself. at times is
a pedestrian, and that at such times he
Is no more sure Of himself while in the
street than the man who lodges so
crafty in front of him.
At some of our corners the mad
swirl of cars is not only perplexing, it
is terrifying. We stood at Connecticut
avenue and K street the other day, and
watched girl walk boldly into the
middle of the street.
Just as she got there the cars began
going east and west. A fellow driving
a big truck came Squarely toward her
at rs miles per hour. Something on
the sidewalk-or maybe it was some
one-had attracted his attention, so
that he did not see the girl in the road.
When he did see her he executed one
Of the prettieSt pieces of lodging with
a truck that We have ever seen. He
fairly skldded around the petrified
pedestrian
If he had hit her, some witnesses
would have claimed he was not watch
ing the road, and others would have
been equally positive that the girl
jumped back just as he tried to go
around her.