Thanks to the roadside advertisements, driving a car has become as easy as playing a pianola. You just watch the instructions that appear along the edge, and regulate your levers and pedals accordingly. Thus, when you see:

DANGEROUS
CURVE

Sound Raspon

—you reach instinctively for the button of your electric horn. Later, seeing:

SHARP DESCENT

Apply Eureka Non-Slip-able Brake

—you comply gracefully. A mere twist of the wrist or dislocation of the ankle does the trick.

He that reads may run. Any man who has ever watched an organist pull out stops and push them in again can become a motor virtuoso. Any woman accustomed to following instructions in cutting out a dress pattern, can grasp the idea as easily as, when told to, she grasps the lever which operates Bingo's Northpolean Radiator Cooler. It is so simple that it is imbecile.

Every peculiarity of the route is heralded. All its little irregularities, its deviations from straightness, its bad declines and sudden uppishnesses, even the small faults which an easy-going person would overlook, are held up sternly in warning.

GUSTY CORNER

Raise Breez-o Extension Wind-Shield

SANDY STRETCH

Spray Gears With Anti-Grit

PUDDLES

Apply Splashol Emergency Mud-Guard

RAILROAD CROSSING

Put Ear To Locomotive Detectaphone

DANGEROUS BOULDER

Before Ramming This Make Sure
Achilles Collision Buffer Is
Properly Adjusted

VILLAGE SPEED TRAP

Apply Backfire With Ready Constable Exterminator

Occasionally, as a relief from the faults of the road, its favorable points are dwelt on. Thus,

MOUNTAIN VIEW

Enjoy it Through Auto-Flex Non-Refractory Goggles

In general, however, the emphasis is upon the perils of the way, as—

Only 1 Mile to

HOTEL SOAKUM

(Here no specific instructions are given, it being understood that the accessory involved is one's pocketbook and that the directions are: "Open All the Way.")

The system has one drawback. The signs never fail, yet there is such a thing as trusting them too implicity. I knew a man who, as the result of trying to obey seven signs telling him to "Be Sure to Dine At" as many different inns, stripped the lining of his esophagus. And I knew of another man—a timid, earnest, nervous old gentleman—who depended on signs so completely that one day, at a dangerous part of the road, being suddenly confronted with the command:

USE PLEXO

he fell into a panic. "Plexo, plexo!" he muttered in bewilderment. "Where is the plexo lever? I can't find the plexo button! Something terrible will happen unless I find it."

It did. As, with trembling fingers, he fumbled through the entire outfit of attachments, he forgot to steer, and unluckily ran off the edge of a precipice; so that he did not live to learn that plexo was a massage cream.