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Show Will You Join Luckless Legion? More than 2,800,000 Americans were drafted into the Luckless Legion of Automobile casualites of 1958. In its annual highway safety booklet entitled "The Luckless Legion," the Travelers Insurance Companies pointed out "This is an army of suffering humanity which grows more rapidly each year. It is made up of the injured and the dead, the heedless and the innocent, the young and the old. Since the automoible first appeared ont he American scene, these ranks of the crippled and the dead have included more than 60,000,000 of us." 8 The Luckless Legion is a silent, haunted army. We erect no monuments to it. No grim reminders mar the sleek beauty of the roads and highways which are its field of battle. A newspaper news-paper headline, perhaps, marks the induction of the latest recruit. re-cruit. Then silence. Silent suffering. A lifetime of pain. Or the silent memories of those who mourn when the dead are laid to rest. There were '36,700 men, women and children numbered among the dead of the Luckless Legion during the past year. For every fatality there were 77 people who suffered painful injuries. Hour by hour and day by day, this total climbed until it reached the staggering total of 2,825,000. a Injuries during the past year rose 12 per cent twice the rate of increase for the previous year. In the rising curve of injuries lies the greatest waste of human resources in the nation. Behind the lines of our efforts toward national progress, the Luckless Legion stands as a vast fifth column. Statistics, pledges and slogans do not seem to change us. Something more is neded. During 1959, the Luckless Legion will be meeting in our community ... on a stretch of highway or in a hospital zone or in the morgue. You alone will know when the meeting time is near. In the temptation to bear down a little harder on the gas, to beat the darkness home, to test your reflexes when they, are dulled by sleep or alcohol, to jay walk on crowded streets, to forget caution when weather and road conditions are bad. During 1959 every time you are behind the wheel of a car, remember that the Luckless Legion is looking for recruits. Don't be one. |