When there is a law it ought, no doubt, to.
be enforced, and I have never felt that the 30-mile limit in built-up areas was unreasonable—provided that special thorough- fares like by-passes and arterial roads are excepted from the restriction, as for the most part they are. But the menacing flamboyance of Lord Trenchard's announce- ments about the calculated motorist-trapping apparatus that he is organizing has something very distasteful about it. What do Mr. Hore-Belisha and Lord Trenclaard want? To prosecute every motorist driving 31 miles an hour in a built-up area, or to prevent motorists from doing 40 miles an hour? In Pall Mall and on Constitution Hill there is a 20-mile limit, universally observed without any special police-cars, tested speedometers, gongs, or any of the rest of the paraphernalia. A good many cars no doubt do 22 or even 25 miles on occasion, but a few pro- secutions of drivers defying the limit much more flag- rantly than that are quite enough to keep general speed down. So it would be in the 30-mile-an-hour roads: Official concentration on motor-chasing can only mean official neglect of duties far more pressing.
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