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And Sudden Death
Publicizing the total of motoring injuries never succeeds in jarring the
motorist into a realization of the appalling risks of motoring. He does not
translate dry statistics into a reality of blood and agony. Figures exclude
the pain and horror of savage mutilation -- which means they leave out
the point. They need to be brought closer home. A passing look at a bad
smash or the news that a friend is in hospital with a broken back will make
any driver but a born fool slow down at least temporarily. But what is
needed is a vivid and sustained realization that every time you step on the
accelerator Death gets in beside you, waiting for his chance.
The automobile is treacherous. It is tragically hard to realize that it can
become a deadly missile. Driving at high speed puts a viciously unjustified
responsibility on brakes and human reflexes, and can instantly turn
this
docile luxury into a mad bull elephant. Collision, turnover or side-swipe,
each type of accident produces either a shattering dead stop or a crashing
change of direction. Since the occupants continue in the old direction at
the original speed, every surface and angle of the car's interior immediately
becomes a battering, tearing projectile, aimed squarely at the occupants.
It is impossible to brace oneself against these imperative laws of momentum.
Anything can happen in the split second of crash, even lucky escapes.
People have dived through windscreens and come out with only superficial
scratches. Cars have collided head on, both reduced to twisted junk, while
the drivers have been found unhurt and arguing bitterly two minutes
afterwards. But Death was there just the same -- he was only exercising
his privilege of being erratic.
On the other hand, consider the raw ends of bones protruding through
flesh in compound fractures; the dark-red oozing surfaces where clothes
and skin have been flayed off; the cracked pelvis guaranteeing agonizing
months in bed, motionless, perhaps crippled for life; the smashed knees
and splintered shoulder blades; and the lethal consequences of broken ribs,
which puncture hearts and lungs with their raw ends.
Glass contributes its share to the spectacular side of accidents. Even
safety glass may not be wholly safe when the car crashes into something at
high speed. You hear picturesque tales of how a flying human body will
make a neat hole in the stuff with its head -- the shoulders stick -- the glass
holds -- and the raw keen edge decapitates the body as neatly as a guillotine.
Or, to continue with the decapitation
motif, going off the road into a
post-and-rail fence can put you beyond worrying about other injuries
immediately when a rail pierces the windscreen and tears off your head with
its splintery end -- not as neat a job but just as efficient. Bodies are often
found with shoes off and feet broken out of shape. The shoes are on the
floor of the car, empty and with laces still neatly tied. That is the kind of
impact produced by modern speeds.
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