Highway Patrol (TV Series) Reckless Driving (1955) User Reviews

The expansion of a four lane highway results in increased number of traffic deaths

[Paularoc · 7/10 · 29 July 2012]

With the development of a four lane highway in California there is a huge jump in the number of traffic deaths. The Highway patrol decides to increase enforcement of the traffic laws as one means to educate the driving public on the need to follow the laws to avoid accidents. One traveling salesman just can't get the message and he continues to speed and then get a ticket until finally his license is suspended. His wife must drive him to sales appointments and he is frustrated about how slowly she drives. When her glasses get broken and she can't drive, he drives and while speeding is in accident that seriously injures his wife. Of course, the man is distraught but Crawford tells him he just can't feel sorry for him. There are a couple of interesting things about this episode aside from the rather mundane subject matter. No one used seat belts and the Highway Patrol motorcycle officers did not wear helmets. Its funny how use we get to something and it slips our minds that maybe such practices are fairly new. It was also interesting to see that many of California's highways were two-way and four lane highways were under expansion. Crawford's parting words in this show were: "The careless driver is not driving his car, he's aiming it."

empty highway

[petersjoelen · 4/10 · 27 April 2023]

Was it really so dangerous on the highways in the 50s that you could not drive faster than 55 miles an hour on an almost empty road .

The message is clear but it is not a realistic one and the possible dangers are highly exaggarerated just to try to make a point .

Reckless driving is more than just only speeding and it contains a lot of factors like driving to short to the car in front of you or alcohol before driving ( it is rather strange that the focus here just lies on a bit speeding and just ignore those other factors ) .

It is rather comical to make such an episode and criminalise a bit of speeding in such a extreme way .