Fr is astonishing that any Government department should launch on
the world a document charged with so much superfluous silliness as the revised Highway Code. The value of the code itself is arguable, for it contains no hints or rules which any normal driver would not observe for himself, but its no doubt has' its uses as a reminder to the careless and for the creation of certain presumptions in courts of law. But if such a booklet is issued every word ought to tell, and nothing be included that provokes mere derision. What conceivable sense can there be in informing a public which pre- sumably is not mentally deficient that
" A slippery road is dangerous "; or enjoining it : " When on a narrow winding road, Jiowever familiar to you, go slow " ; or " When traffic in front of you is held up, never attempt to gain a forward position by encroaching on the offside of the road" (Anglice : " never push to the front on the offside ") ; or writing ‘`. . . for the purpose of passing from one side of the road to the other with reasonable despatch" (Anglice, " . . . for crossing the road at a normal pace ")?
If ridicule could kill, Mr. Henry Strauss' speech in the House on Wednesday night would have left the 'code in its present form a corpse. But the Government majority, of course, pushed it through.
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