The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1935-10-10

est missile. As enthusiasts tell youl
| it makes 65 feel like nothing at all.
But IS an hour is 100 feet second,
a speed which puts vicously unjusti-
fled responsibility on brakes and hui
man reflexes, and can instantly turn
this docile luxury into a mad bull
elephant.
Collision, turnover or sideswipe,
each type of accident produces either
a shattering dead stop or crashing
change of directions and, since the
occupant meaning you = continues
in the old direction at the original
speed, every surface and angle of the
cars interior Immediately becomes q
battering, tearing projectile, aimed
squarely at you-inescapable. There
is no bracing yourself against these
imperative laws of momentum.
It's like going over Niagara Falls
in a steel barrel full of railroad
spikes. The best thing that can hap
pen to you-and one of the rarer
things-is to be thrown out as the
doors spring open, so you have only
the ground to reckon with. True, you
strike with as much force as if you
had been thrown from the Twentieth
Century at top speed. But at least
you are spared the lethal array of
cleaning metal knobs and edges and
ciass inside the car.
Anything can happen in that split
second of crash, even those lucky
escapes you hear about. People have
dived through windshields and come
out with only superficial scratches
They have run cars together head on,
reducing both to twisted junk, and
been found unhurt and arguing bit
terly two minutes afterward. But
death was there just the same-he
was only exercising his privilege OF
being cratic. This spring wrecking
crew pried the door off car which
had been overturned down an EN-.
bankment and out stepped the driver
with only scratch on his cheek. But
his mother was still inside, splinter
of wood from the top driven four
inches into her brain as result OF
sons taking greasy curve little
too fast. No blood-no horribly twist.
ed bones-just a gray-haired corpse
still clutching her pocketbook in hel
lap as she had clutched it when she
felt the car leave the road.
On that same curve month later
| a light touring car crashed a tree
In the middle of the front seat they
found a nine-months-old baby sur
rounded by broken glass and yet alb
solutely unhurt. A fine practical joke
On death-but spoiled by the baby
parents, still sitting on each side o.
him, instantly killed by shatterint
their skulls on the dashboard.
| If you customarily pass withou
clear vision long way ahead, MAKE
sure that every member Of the part!
carries identification papers-it's diff
ficult to identify a body with it,
whole face dashed in or torn off. Thu
driver is deaths favorite target. L
the steering wheel holds together i
ruptures his liver or spleen so h
bleeds to death internally. Or, if TIL
steering wheel breaks off, the matte
is settled instantly by the scoring
columns plunging through his aldo
men.
| BY no means do all head-on coli
sions occur on curves. The modern
death-trap is like to be q straigh
stretch with three. lanes of traffic
like the notorious Astor Flats on%th,
Albany Post Road where there hay,
as many. as II fatalities in one sum
mer month. This sudden vision o
broad, straight road tedpts many al
ordinarily sensible driver into passing
the man ahead. simultaneously +;
driver coming the other way swings
out at high speed. At the last momen
each tries to get into line again, bu
the gaps are closed. AS the cars il
line are forced into the ditch to cap
size or crash fences, the passers meet
almost head on, in a swirling, grind
4 ing smash that send them caromin&
ohliquely into the others.
Il A trooper described such an acct
den-five cars in one mess, sever
killed on the spot, two dead on tn
way to the hospital, two more dead II
the long run. He remembered it fa'
more wildly than he wanted to-th'
mIick NAV tho donfNv t,,rnOd away