Review: Traffic Control and Road Accident Prevention
| Published date | 01 January 1952 |
| Date | 01 January 1952 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X5202500117 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS 71
book, one subject, will lead you inevitably to another and give you the
double rewards of pleasure and profit.
There
is, of course, a snag in all efforts to carve
out
acareer in any
walk of life and it is one to which, in fairness, I must draw your attention.
When you have cultivated an impeccable attitude towards your
job;
when you have worked like a galley slave at the oar of your mental ship,
there still remains one vital and unknown factor about which you can do
absolutely nothing. I know of no better description of that factor than
the one contained in
Ecclesiastes-"
Ireturned and saw under the sun
that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet
bread to the wise, nor yet riches to
men
of understanding,
nor
yet
favour to men of skill,
but
time and chance happeneth to them all."
That, gentlemen, is the unknown quantity in the equation of a
career, that time and chance happen to us all.Yours sincerely,
C. G.
Reviews
TRAFFIC
CONTROL
AND
ROAD
ACCIDENT
PREVENTION.
By
Captain
Athelstan
Popkess,
G.B.E.
4to
(10
X7~),
Chapman
&Hall,
London,
1951;
pp.
x, 276.
Price
37s. 6d.
net.
It
is to be
hoped
that
this
handsomely
produced
book
will be
widely
read
not
only
in Police circles
and
by
borough
surveyors
and
engineers
but
by
those
who
drive
motor
vehicles
about
our
roads.
Captain
Popkess is an
accomplished
writer
and,
what
is
more
to
the
point
where
textbooks
such
as
this
are
concerned,
a
clear
thinker.
The
ramifications of traffic
control
and
its corollary
road
accident
prevention
are
today
so vast, so
complicated-and,
it
must
be
added,
in
certain
of
their
aspects so
controver-
sial-that
it
would
be impossible to deal
comprehensively
with
them
in
asingle
volume.
Recognising this,
Captain
Popkess has wisely confined
himself
to obvious essentials,
leaving
the
argument
and
discussion to his readers.
Thus
the
book is
not
an easy
one
to review.
It
is well
illustrated
with
photographs,
forms
and
graphs,
and
is
divided
into
twenty
sections
which
cover
the
entire
range
of
the
road
itself
(as it is at
present
and
as we
should
all like it to be), its use by
motor
vehicles,
the
behaviour
of
those
who
drive
them,
and
what
every
car
owner
ought
to
know
(and
unhappily
doesn't)
about
his car.
But
for all its
many
sections
the
book
falls
naturally
into
three
parts:
the
causes of accidents,
the
imperfections
of
road
users,
and
the
work
of
the
Police
after
an
accident
has
occurred.
Plainly to
compress
all
this
into
some
270
pages of
text
is an
achievement
in
itself.
Yet
in
spite
of
the
compression
which
has
been
necessary
there
is
hardly
a
page
which
does
not
give
the
reader
food for reflection,
and
where
the
author
has
permitted
himself
to
dogmatise
one
feels
that
his
opinion
is
based
upon
the
sound
rock of
personal
experience.
It
is a
book
that
should
be
in
all police libraries.
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