OCR Text |
Show Irresponsible Autoists Getting damages from the railroads used to be one of the greatest outdoor and in door sports. If a man walked on j the forbidden right of way and stubbed his toe, it was the I outrage of the century. Juries thought so, too. How strange, J . thereforp, in these days, when a man gets bumped all over the ' pavement by an automobile, he merely rubs his sore spots, ! ; if he has hands enough, and is satisfied. Of course, he.:tnay j as well be satisfied, for there is nothing he can do about it. . Persons with a good deal less than a dime's worth of financial responsibility may go out and do more .dimagej&'ith an automobile in their possession than they would be able to restore in a life time of savings and have nothing";'done about it. Some measure of remedy is talked about from time to time, but the public has never seemed particularly irtter- ; ested. i j Automobile clubs and others who realize that some day, through a swift psychological change in the public attitude . an embarrassing situation might arise, are studying and pro-I pro-I posing, from time to time, various methods for meeting the 1 situation. ; What to do with the driver who hits the pedestrian with ' a car mortgaged from fenders to tail light and who is reckless reck-less in proportion as he is free from responsibility? One suggestion is that everybody who drives be required to carry indemnity insurance, but the careful driver objects to the plan in which he would have to pay for the other fellow's recklessness. This is a valid objection, in a degree, but the casual observer probably thinks there is no driver so careful that he does not need insurance of this kind. ; Connecticut is' to try a plan in which any person convicted con-victed of reckless driving, intoxication or of running away after an accident, must prove his ability to pay damages ' or have them paid to the amount of $10,000 for personal j injuries and $1,000 for property damage. This requires the i convicted driver to show a non-cancellable policy for these amounts, or to put up a bond or deposit cash or collateral with , the state. The defect in this plan is that a first offender goes free under it. A driver has to have had a previous accident before ho is compelled to come under the law. Switzerland is'Ynaking a try at the situation. It has a 1 plan of state insurance in which the guilty driver must par-; par-; ticipate to the valucof 10 per cent of the value of the damages. dam-ages. Those who see the possibility of adapting the Swiss I plan for this country suggest that instead of collecting the I 10 per cent after the accident, or rather attempting to, a driver be required to put up a deposit of $500. Naturally this would put what is called a "crimp" in the automobile business. Inasmuch as the American public has never seemed to develop any common notions on the control of automobiles it is likely we will muddle along without control. Fourteen were killed in the wreck of the Shenandoah. Since January more than 500 have lost their lives in Chicago because of reckless use of automobiles.. Fourteen were injured in-jured and one killed in Salt Lake last week. Some clay the public will vividly realize the situation and then something unreasonably drastic will result. |