More Cars and Fewer Lord Nuflield's observations on the conditions
of safety on the roads must obviously command respect. It is no doubt true that the main desideratum is to educate drivers in consideration and in road-sense, and that the construction of new roads is essential. This is being taken in hand at last on a reasonable scale, but the increase in the number of ears on the road continues, and it is idle to suppose that roads adequate for today's traffic will be adequate in five years' time any more than roads adequate five years ago are adequate today. For the moment, however, there is likely to be a respite in the increase of congestion, for the regulation, effective as from January 1st, requiring the windscreens of all cars to be fitted with unsplintcrable glass, will, it is said, have the effect of consigning to the scrap-heap some quarter of a million of ancient vehicles whose value is so low that it would not pay to fit them with new wind- screens. As these are the cars that are mechanically in the worst condition, and the most likely to cause accidents, the regulation will achieve more than its original purpose with the result that there will be more new cars on the road, but fewer old ones.
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