The Milwaukee Leader

Shakespeare's seven ages of mankind made no reference to the number who were cut off in their prime by automobiles. If he had, suggests the Stewart-Warner safety council, it might have run something like this parody on his famous lines:

At first the infant.
Killed by a truck while in his nurse's arms,
And then the careless schoolboy with his marbles,
Playing in the streets after his lessons
Are over. And then the lover,
Absent-minded, walking with a box of candy
Under his arm, to see his loved one.
Is struck by a taxi and hurtled to the ground.
Next comes the gay young blood
Out for his evening's entertainment, whom
Sixty miles an hour lands 40 years too soon
Upon a slab in some unfriendly morgue.
And then the banker, full of worldly pride and honors,
Jay-walks across the street between two mighty deals of finance.
And wakes to find Saint Peter quizzing him,
Next, the family man, with years upon him,
Confused and jostled in the crowd.
Missteps, and dies, amid thanksgiving
That his last premium was paid up.
And last, hoary age, tottering and feeble,
Perhaps with crutch, or eye too dimmed with time.
An easy victim for some selfish motorist.
Sans care, sans thought, sans skill, sans everything-but speed.