Page 18A THE BATTALION
MONDAY, AUGUST 28, 1978
France begins safety campaign
Drivers stopped for alcohol test
United Press International
PARIS — On the vacationer-clogged highway
between Paris and Orleans, 179 motorists were
flagged down by police on one recent afternoon.
Each was led into a truck labeled “Alcohol-
test” and asked to blow into a little white bal
loon.
France has unfurled a new campaign to re
duce one of the world s highest highway death
rates. Police stop motorists at random and ask
them to blow into a balloon. If a capsule at the
mouth of the balloon changes from yellow to
green, the driver must take a blood test.
If the test shows more than 0.80 grams of
alcohol per 1% pints (one liter) of blood — indi
cating the dliver has had about three drinks —
he loses his license for one to three years, even
though no accident occurred.
The test is the third step in France’s fight
against the soaring highway death rate.
In 1975 France headed the list of major de
veloped nations in highway deaths with 29.7 per
100,000 inhabitants. Next came Canada with
29.5, followed by Australia 29.1, the United
States 26.4, West Germany 26.3, the Nether
lands 23, Italy 19.5, Japan 17.6 and Great Brit
ain with 14.7.
In 1976 the French government made seat
belts obligatory and clamped on a speed limit of
55 mph on country roads, 68 mph on four-lane
highways and 80 mph on major freeways.
The death rate has dropped 5 percent over
five years, from 16,600 in 1972 to 13,104 in
1977.
France s new highway safety committee
studied how Japan, with a death rate formerly
the world’s highest, had more than halved the
toll. One measure was alcohol tests — before
accidents. Officials say 41 percent of French
traffic deaths involve alcohol.
The French parliament in June approved a
law allowing police to test motorists’ alcohol
intake. A committee spokesman, Michel Herr,
called the law an achievment in itself “consider
ing that the deputies who passed it came from
the Burgundy, Champagne, Loire and other
great wine-producing areas.
Sharp....
Professional....
& At Ease....
because he goes to
the uniform specialists
(Let US worry about the way YOU look!)
Dry Cleaning;s...Alterations...Launilry.. ■ (Shirts & Pants)
University Cleaners
— Northgate —
College Main
846-6615
Having lunch on the lawn
^
Battalion photo by Lee Roy Leschpaj]
This rodent resident of the hedges in front of
the Reed McDonald Bldg, on campus scurried
Mexico’s peasants moving
from rural areas to cities
United Press International
MEXICO CITY — Antonio Mar
tinez awoke at 6 a.m. and went into
the kitchen to re-heat some of last
night’s coffee. The rest of the house
hold — his wife Guadalupe, five of
their six children, and the infant son
of a widowed cousin — still slept in
the four-room brick house.
Across a narrow patio, shaded by a
pine tree and filled with rosebushes
and pink-flowering azaleas planted
in empty tin cans, the Martinez’s el
dest daughter, Irma, 22, and her
husband Manuel are asleep in their
tiny room.
While the coffee boils, Antonio
washes up in a bucket of water in the
narrow bathroom, which has a toilet
but no sink or shower.
Handsome at 44, with thick black
hair and a sweeping mustache. An-
Yon’re at home
with Homestead.
Homestead Savings Association is more
than a new savings and loan. We're a new
approach to financial services. Friendly.
Professional. Concerned about your individ
ual situation. That's why we say you're at
home with Homestead.
So look over our interest rates. They're
the highest allowed by law, compounded
daily. Then stop by Homestead Savings
soon. Enjoy a cup of coffee while we discuss
your financial future. We'll show you why
Bryan-College Station's newest financial
institution is the right one for you.
TYPE OF ACCOUNT
Passbook Accounts (Interest paid from day
of deposit until day of
withdrawal. No
minimum deposit.)
90-Day Notice Accounts
3- Month ($1000 minimum deposit)
Savings Certificates
1-Year ($1000 minimum deposit)
Savings Certificates
2V2-Year ($1000 minimum deposit)
Savings Certificate^
4- Year ($1000 minimum deposit)
Savings Certificates
6-Year ($1000 minimum deposit)
Savings Certificates ~ ■- > , . ;
8-Year ($1000 minimum deposit)
Savings Certificates
Substantial interest penalty required for
early withdrawals on certificate
EFFECTIVE
RATE ANNUAL RATE*
5.25%
5/75%
5.75%
6.50%
6.75%
7.50%
7.75%
8.00%
5.39%
5.92%
5.92%
6.72%
6.98%
7,79%
8.06%
8.33%
'Compounded Daily and
( redited yuarterly
Homestead Savings Association of Texas
1063 S. Texas Avenue
(across from the main entrance to A&M)
Phone: 693-1063
Your savings insured to $40,000
with the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation.
FSLK
tonio drinks the coffee black, with
two teaspoons of sugar, and leaves
the house for his job as doorman in an
elegant downtown restaurant.
It will take him about 45 minutes
and cost 1.50 pesos (about 7 U.S.
cents) to get to work by bus. But he is
lucky.
Many of the other men in Colonia
Providencia, a newish workers dis
trict on the eastern fringe of the capi
tal, will spend as much as two hours
crossing the crowded city to their
jobs in factories in the western indus
trial suburbs.
At 7 a.m., Guadalupe wakes up
and starts to prepare breakfast. Slit'
is 43, slender and diminutive, her
black hair worn in a braid down her
back in the style of Mexican-Indian
women.
Guadalupe has borne six children
and now has a seventh child to care
for — 6-month-old Felipe, whose
mother, a cousin of Antonio s, died
in childbirth. She will care for him
until his father marries again.
Antonio and Guadalupe Martinez,
are representative of a growing phe
nomenon — the rural-born, city-
absorbed, upwardly-mobile working
class. About 60 percent of Mexico s
64 million people live in cities and by
the year 2()<X) demographers expect
the proportion to rise to almost 80
percent.
The Martine/.es are among the
more than 5.2 million of Mexico Gi-
ty’s 13 million people who migrated
to the city from the country in search
of better jobs and better lives.
Antonio and Guadalupe were born
in Santa Marta, a village of 3,000
people about 85 miles northwest of
Mexico City. Their parents were
farmers and both completed three
years of primary school, slightly less
than the national average.
They were married in 1957 and
Antonio worked the farm, helping
his father plant corn and beans. But
there was not enough to do on the
10-acre plot for Antonio and his four
brothers.
So in 1959 the family came to
Mexico City and Antonio found work
washing dishes in a restaurant. He
moved to his present job in 1962.
The family has come a long way in
two decades of city life. Nine years
ago, they had saved enough to buy a
small lot in Colonia Providencia— it
cost them about $3,500 — and
gradually built their own house on it.
The rooms are cramped and the
green paint is peeling from the walls.
The drab concrete streets, close to
the dusty remains of Texcoco Lake,
is not as pleasant as the green semi-
tropical village where they spent
their childhood.
But they live better than they did
in the country. And their children
have educational and work oppor
tunities unknown in Santa Marta.
The family eats better too — meat
or chicken twice a week, eggs every
other day.
“On the rancho, it was mostly
beans,” Guadalupe said. “Meat only
once in a while, eggs once in a while,
hardly any milk, just coffee.”
The Martinezes have managed to
save enough to buy a number of
appliances: a gas stove, television
set, record player, radio, iron, blen
der, and a sewing machine.
Increased prosperity is changing
their social attitudes as well. Al-
from cover just long enough to grab a snack—
and was hardly noticed by passing students.
though Guadalupe became pregm
right after marriage, her daugli
Irma has been married two years!
says she does not want to liavead
yet.
Guadalupe is making “sopes’’
breakfast this morning. These
corn tortillas made thickertl
usual, spread with chile sauce;
sprinkled with cheese.
After breakfast, with the child
gone to school and jobs. Guadali
I axes the baby with Innaandji
to the neighborhood public mai
to buy food for tin* day s mainm
Tlw Lvm\\s \v.\s vw> TeVrigeTatur so
must shop daily.
Today will not be a meat or
day. Beefcosts almost $1.50apoi
fish is even more expensive, alt
$2 a pound. Lunch will be nr
cooked in tomato sauce, he
eggs, with papaya — which
son — for dessert.
Antonio cats a big breakfastnfli
and eggs at the restaurant, «lt
wealthy businessmen lunch e\n
sively on canellonis Rossini ami
ported trout.
They will spend twice as nitidi
one meal as Antonio camsinat
He gets the minimum wage of$c
and picks up another $3..50in tim
parking customers’ cars.
Sometimes Antonio does not
turn home immediately afterwn
but goes to visit his "casacliica, I
"little house where his lorerG
men lives with their child.
Second families like thcirsirestil
common at all social and ram
levels in Mexico.
Carmen works as a sales derl
small neighborhood grocery If
port their child. Antonio helpi
with some money fairly red
but the demands of his
grande, the big house’’of Mr
lupe and the- children, are tund
for him to support Carmen too
Guadalupe suspects that died
tionship exists, but she understand
machismo and is resigned to it. St*
probably will not complain as lone*
Antonio continues to supportti"
and the children.
Like most working class Mexitf
women, Guadalupe spends mod
her time at home and lias fewsoa
contacts outside her family,
Alter lunch, she takes a slw
siesta with the baby and tlieid
down with Irma to watch their I
voritc “telenovelas
soap open
Juan Carlos and Rosa do thei
homework in front of the set wliil
Benjamin plays soccer in the street
Tomorrow is Saturday and Ai
tonio will work a full day at the
staurant. On Sunday the family plan
a picnic in Chapultepee Park forth
day.
Antonio used to own an oldcarah
was able to take his family fartli
afield for Sunday outings. Buti
pairs became too costlv and he had
sell it.
He is saving money for anotke
car, however, and hopes to ha 1 '
enough for a down payment when!*
gets his Christmas bonus -
month’s pay under Mexican law.
Antonio still takes his family*
Santa Marta for vacations, but h
wouldn’t want to go back there*
live.
“We’re really just getting by, W
it’s better here than on theranck
he said.
for the best fresh fruits and
VEGETABLES IN TOWN
THE FARM PATCH
3519 S. College
x 822-7209