Blast & Brake
Sirs:
In TIME, Aug. 12, Cecil P. Brown of Portland, Maine, expresses appreciation of Harold Keates Hales, M. P. "as a great and progressive human" in that he claims to be the only automobile driver in the world who has never once blown his horn.
I wonder what horn-ignoring Harold Keates Hales has done if and when, while driving, he has met a car coming across the road towards him with its driver looking off to the side and not realizing that he has changed the course of his car.
I would like to ask horn-hating Cecil P. Brown if he has ever turned a corner to find his way completely blocked by playing children. Or has he come upon unmindful chickens or dogs, which I find usually respond to a horn's blast and scamper aside to safety.
I would also like to know how many collisions the "great and progressive" Harold Keates Hales, M. P. has had during his sans signal career.
Being one who detests needless horn-blowing, I still maintain there are times when the blast is quite as necessary as the brake.
PAUL BAILEY Amityville, N. Y.
Sirs:
. . . Any man who lives in the U. S. and has driven a car for years without having ever sounded his horn is either a bit absent-minded or he is not fit to drive a car. Many many fatal accidents have occurred because no warning was given. It is better to annoy a pedestrian or motorist than to kill him. . . .
Of course, in a crowded city there is less excuse lor needless horn-blowing, but I feel sure that nearly everyone has owed his life at one time or another to the timely blast of an automotive horn. I uphold the saying "Rely on your brakes instead of your horn," but that axiom does not always apply. How does noiseless Mr. Brown expect to pass a lumbering motor truck on a narrow road? The driver would be only too glad to pull over if he knew someone wished to pass. IT IS NOT ONLY DISCOURTEOUS BUT DANGEROUS TO TRY TO PASS A CAR WITHOUT LETTING THE DRIVER KNOW.
Perhaps this does not apply in Great Britain, but it certainly does in New York State.
WARREN R. PERRINS Rochester, N. Y.
"What is Marblehead?"
Sirs:
I am a Marbleheader, which means that I was born in Marblehead, Mass., as were my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents and a generation or two before them. That's the only way you become a Marbleheader, for as our local newspaper once remarked, in the obituary notice of a gentleman who died in his ninety-second year—"He was not a Marbleheader, as he was born in Danvers, although his parents brought him to this town when an infant six months of age."
Your story in TIME, Aug. 12 is swell, but when you refer to Marblehead as a "smug Boston suburb," it's just too bad. Imagine Marblehead a suburb of anything!