Bilingualism revisited: or the confessions of a middle-aged and belated francophile

Abstract. The efforts to functionally bilingualize the federal public service over the past decade have generally attracted more jeers than cheers. In this rather personal article the author attempts to describe and defend his own role and that of the Public Service Commission in a major attempt at adult re-education.     

Evaluation of automobile safety regulations: The case of compulsory seat belt legislation in Australia

A basic tenet of the new conservatism in political economy is that government policies frequently lead to unintended consequences which may offset the benefits of the policy. Auto safety legislation may be a case in point. As the first country to make the wearing of seat belts compulsory, Australia is highly suitable as a case study. Traffic accident casualties were regressed on six independent variables for the pre-seat belt period 1949–71. The equations were then used to predict casualties for the period 1972–77, using the actual values of the independent variables. In the aggregate, predicted occupant casualties were higher than the actual rates, whereas non-occupant casualties were underpredicted by the equations. An additional test, using a dummy variable to predict the effect of seat belts, supported these conclusions. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that drivers respond to a reduction in risk by increasing driving intensity, shifting some of the welfare cost of auto safety legislation on to non-occupants, whose casualty rates are higher than they would have been in the absence of seat belt legislation.I am grateful to Chris Adam and to an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments and suggestions.     

Reviews

Allan K. Wildman, The End of the Russian Imperial Army: The Old Army and the Soldiers’ Revolt (March‐April 1917). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980. 402 pp. £13.70.

Adam Zwass, Money, Banking and Credit in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, translated by Michel C. Vale. New York: M. E. Sharpe Inc. London: Macmillan, 1979. 233 pp. £12.00.

Jan Adam, Wage Control and Inflation in the Soviet Bloc Countries. London: Macmillan, 1979. i‐xx+243 pp. £15.00.

Robert A. Lewis and Richard H. Rowland, Population Redistribution in the USSR. Its Impact on Society, 1897–1977. New York: Praeger Publishers (Praeger Special Studies), 1979. xx + 485 pp. £22.50.

Michael Bourdeaux, The Land of Crosses, Chulmleigh, Devon: Augustine Publishing Company, 1979, xviii + 339 pp. £3.00.

V. Stanley Vardys, The Catholic Church, Dissent and Nationality in Soviet Lithuania. Boulder: East European Quarterly. Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York, 1978. 336 pp. $18.00.

Richard Taylor, The Politics of the Soviet Cinema 1917–1929. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979, xvi + 214 pp. £9.50.