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Show Public Opinion Could Force the Adoption of Uniform Traffic Law Public opinion could force the adoption of uniform traffic laws throughout the country, thereby saving countless lives, a spokesman for one of the nation's largest automobile insurers said this week. "The lives that could be saved by such a reform could never be counted, nor could the pain and suffering that would be spared untold thousands ever be fully documented," he declared. 'A look at the past year's highway traffic toll indicates that such a program would be based on fact rather than fancy. Reports show that violations of traffic laws figured in more than 80 per cent of all personal injury acidents last year. "We believe that in at least some of these cases confusion and misunderstanding of the law caused the violations." As an example of this, he pointed out that signal lights mean different things in various parts of the country. Our state stipulates that an amber light is a walk light for pedestrians, while in a neighboring state the amber light merely denotes caution before the red signals are flashed. In one state a motorist stops immediately when the amber light comes on because he knows it is a walk light. If he did the same thing in the next state the car behind him would slam into him. I Warning signs differ from state to state, speed limits change radically and road markings vary. In one state it is proper to rnake a right turn on a red light; in another, this constitutes running a red lignt. Reporting procedures vary from town to town and ' many towns even fail. to report non-fatal accidents. The varied interpretation of operating under the influence laws throughout the country make national studies on this complex safety problem prob-lem nearly impossible. , , The need for uniform traffic laws in the nation is only too 1 obvious to the public which must cope with this dangerous state of confusion. |