- Officer Charles Reineke: [voiceover] Of all the thankless jobs... You're supposed to be here to protect people, but they act like a cop was their natural enemy.
- Officer Charles Reineke: [a couple looks at him with suspicion, with a child in the back seat sticking out his tongue; then a pretty woman driving a car smiles at him] Well... most people, that is. People who don't hate cops are scared of cops; they should be scared without 'em. You have to get off the highway occasionally, or you find yourself leading a parade.
- Officer Charles Reineke: [pulls off road up to a vantage point overlooking the highway] That's what it is - a parade. Twenty-seven cars passing there every minute; average speed, 51 miles an hour. Forty years ago, it was eight cars a day; top speed, 26 miles an hour. Fifty years ago, there were wagons averaging 26 miles a day. Sixty years ago, that road was a cattle trail. People traveling a thousand miles like they once went 50. Speeding up their lives. People going a mile a minute to work, or play, out for the job, or getting away from it all. Going home, or looking for greener pastures. A new generation, freed from limitations of time and space. A nation on wheels - a nation going places. Give him a car, and every man's a king on the highway.
- Motorist: [to motorcycle cop who pulled him over] Well, I was only doing 30. Why don't you be reasonable?
- Officer Charles Reineke: That's 5 miles over the limit - but I clocked you at 45.
- Motorist: Well, I know how fast I was going... My word's as good as yours. Looky, copper - I'm not afraid of that uniform. I could get you fired for this!
- Officer Charles Reineke: Okay, chum. The name's Chuck Reineke - badge 193, Los Angeles Police Department. Huh. You'd be doing me a favor.
- Officer Charles Reineke: [narrating] Yes, there's something very personal about an automobile. It assumes the characteristics of its driver. You can follow a car for a mile or two, and know the best - or the worst - about the person at the wheel... The irresponsible, the selfish, the bully, the thoughtless, the absent-minded, the dope.
- Officer Charles Reineke: [narrating] Fifty years ago, there were no automobiles. Now, we have thirty million. Three quarters of the world's automobiles, in the United States - driving us faster, bringing the people closer to each other... the country, closer to the people.
- [first lines]
- KFI Announcer: ...subsidies which were stricken from the measure by the lower chamber. Here's an Associated Press bulletin just handed me: One hundred persons die, and twenty-five hundred are injured every 24 hours in traffic accidents, the National Safety Council said today, in a survey which shows Los Angeles has the nation's worst accident record.
- [last lines]
- Officer Charles Reineke: [narrating] We do what we can. Some that get away from us, we catch later at the morgue or the hospital. Anyway, stopping cars won't stop reckless driving - that's up to the driver. And too many of them have to learn the hard way.