OCR Text |
Show RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIGHWAY HIGH-WAY ACCIDENTS RESTS ON GOVERNMENT An appealing number of people peo-ple are killed and injured every year on the highways of this country. Sporadic efforts are made in cities and occasionally by States, to cure the evil by legislation and regulation of the traffic, notably in speed ordinances ordi-nances and headlight laws, but without much effect. The reason rea-son is that speed and glaring headlights are not the primary cause of highway accidents. Examination as to the causes of accidents shows that the principal prin-cipal factors are sharp curves, impaired vision due to fences, overhanging trees, embankment J ect., excessive grades, too narrow nar-row bridges, slippery road surfaces, sur-faces, dangerous detours, defective defec-tive road surfaces, weak bridges and too narrow roads. If the National or State government gov-ernment permitted a railroad to kill and maim its passengers because be-cause of too sharp curves, too steep grades, defective rails, improper signals, or too weak bridges, the people would speedily speed-ily change the government ! Roads have grown almost imperceptibly im-perceptibly from paths through the forests to highways. The automobile traffic was born almost al-most overnight and is increasing by leaps and bounds. Government Govern-ment is used to highways as safe ribbons of traffic. It has yet taken little cognizance of the dangers which the road, safe for a horse and buggy, provides for a car. It is inevitable that the United Unit-ed States construct a system of trunk-line highways north and south, east and west, throughout through-out the country. Such highways will not have dangerous surfaces curves, bridges, embankments or crossings. As soon as State, county and town road builders see the difference in the death and injury rate on properly built and maintained highways, their own standards of road construction con-struction will inevitably respond. Until that day comes, it is impossible im-possible entirely to absolve governmental gov-ernmental indifference from com plicity in highway accidents. |