Judge — March 5, 1927 — page 10: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Modern Improvements for Hell Bent Drivers" This Judge cartoon satirizes reckless drivers through a darkly humorous afterlife scenario. The illustration depicts the mythological River Styx (the boundary between the living world and the underworld in Greek mythology) reimagined as a modern highway with warning signs and infrastructure. "Hell bent drivers"—those driving dangerously fast—are literally shown driving toward Hell. The cartoon warns speeding motorists that their reckless behavior will lead to damnation, using the classical underworld as metaphor. The ornate bridge with proper signage ("Keep Right") mocks how modern traffic safety measures cannot save careless drivers from their fate. This reflects 1920s-era concerns about automobile safety and dangerous driving habits during the early automotive age, when traffic fatalities were rising sharply. The joke equates fatal recklessness with literal damnation.