Life In Deepest France: One for the road

SAVIGNAC-DE-MIREMONT, France, June 4 (UPI) -- We're going mad, everywhere in deepest France, over our country's rising traffic death toll. Late in the day among technologically advanced nations, we're waking up to the fact that we just can't carry on like this.

We have recently been jerked out of our laissez-faire tradition by two things. The first was an election pledge by Jacques Chirac, where he said that if elected, the amnesty on outstanding traffic violations traditionally granted by the incoming president would not be granted. This promise was part of his "insecurity" platform. Most presidential hopefuls spoke of the country heading into an abyss of insecurity -- thanks, of course, to the incompetence of previous administrations -- and that only this, that, or the other candidate could put things right.

Chirac, though, was the only one to include the issue of road safety under the same overall heading.

Of course it wasn't this promise that got him elected -- it was Jean-Marie Le Pen. But many French people deplore the more banana-republic aspects of how their country is run; and Chirac's no-amnesty announcement met with widespread approval.

The second thing was a particularly violent car-smash 10 days ago in which three pedestrians were killed and six others injured. At Vitry-sur-Seine, in northern France, one Friday evening, a young man took off on a joyride with a couple of pals in a brand-new Porsche borrowed from a friend of a friend. Smack in the city center, he drove the sports car at high speed along a marked-off bus-lane, lost control of it as it mounted the sidewalk, and smashed it into a bus shelter.

Sitting in the shelter were a 29-year-old mother and her three infants. She and two of her babies were killed. The third, a 14-month-old boy, is maimed for life. The other injured victims were standing beside and behind the shelter. One had to have his leg amputated on the spot before rescuers could disentangle the rest of him from the metal. As I write, all of the injured are still in the hospital and expected to stay there for a while.

The driver and his two passengers took off on foot. But they had police records already, and knew they couldn't remain untraced for long. So an hour or so later they turned themselves in. They face charges of failing to help people in danger and of leaving the scene of a crash; both are criminal offenses in France. The driver will also be prosecuted for manslaughter at least, with some commentators calling for the charge to be upgraded to murder, although without criminal intent.

This brings out into the open what many have been saying for years: that France's driving habits are not just careless, selfish and dangerous, but that they are often also criminal. There is a widespread feeling that we should now make a distinction between what on the one hand may be considered purely "accidents," due at least mostly to bad luck or genuine error, and disasters caused by behavior that is demonstrably criminal, either through negligence or intended.

The Porsche driver of ten days ago is regarded as a criminal because he was driving dangerously on purpose, not by mistake or by "accident"; he knew exactly what he was doing and what the possible consequences might be, yet continued to do it nonetheless.

France has always refused to face up to what is happening on its roads. With 8,000 road deaths a year, we come about bottom of the list of countries that trouble themselves with such statistics. We have about the same number of drivers and vehicles as Britain -- but we manage to kill well over twice as many people.

Traditional reaction to this ghastly state of affairs has usually been a shrug and a "Oui, mais qu'est-ce tu veux? C'est comme ça" -- "Yes, but what can you do? that's the way it is."

True, it will take France a while to turn things around. We get fined and lose license points for speeding, crossing central white lines, running a red light or drunken driving. And we laugh about it, as though these things were a series of exploits to be admired.

We boast about how quickly we got from A to B, when instead we should be ashamed. It's a matter of honor (men's honor, that is); and like all such traditions, it mustn't be questioned because then it might be shown up as, well, stupid. We imagine we can commit these violations with impunity, and that it's purely bad luck to be caught. Most of the time we aren't, which only goes to reinforce the tradition yet further.

If the Vitry-sur-Seine murderer gets off lightly, there will be a massive public outcry. Similarly, if Jacques Chirac goes back on his promise not to grant motorists the "traditional" amnesty for unpaid traffic violations, there will also be an outcry.

France is sickened by its record. Most French drivers agree that they need help in overcoming their terrible, murderous habits. There is an increasing feeling that such things as speeding, alcohol at the wheel, tail-gaiting, and dangerous overtaking must be checked; and that only imposition from above can alter the mentality that allows them to be both committed and tolerated in the way that, until now, they always have been.