Show i 1 i I f I II I I I S r I Take lake the ze Children From the Steering Wheels I w VVe We e suppose that there will not be an aw awakening kenin to the danger anger of automobile until there is another rt handling of motor cars and another t tragedy that will shock this city citro At p present those in l- l authority y seem absolutely sleep asleep so o f far r ras as their duty duty is IS concerned in in III enforcing the 1 Iz ws intended to protect the public I s sWe We saw yesterday for instance an automobile coming coming down 11 rain Main street with four little girls in it If the girl at the tho wheel wheel was a e over thirteen years old then we do not not know anything at all al alla a about Dout girls We took the number of the car thinking that as a public duty dirty we e sho should d report it to the tho police then we thought how silly that Would mould be Nothing is ever done about these cases and yet we feel that the parents of that little girl would be criminally to blame if she should kill kUl anyone 1 No girl that age has has' the nerve to keep cool in a crisis crisis and guide such h an agency df if death as a a powerful automobile as it should be gl guided ded especially if the pedestrian in front of it should become excited excited excited ex ex- cited and confused and try to dodge it ItI i I When a little girl that age gets in a tight fix fig where an accident B sterns seems inevitable she invariably becomes panicky and turns loose the wheel th wheel co coVers ers her eyes with her hands sh shrieks iek and faints We have had some sad experiences In in this city of that kind and not only the parents of these children but the city officials who have havethe havethe havethe the authority to keep them away from the steering wheel would at l least least least-be ast be morally guilty if not legally guilty for the death of any persons killed by these machines i THE TELEGRAM has also found another serious complaint with oUr our traffic regulations The Tho men who ride motorcycles seem to forg forget for for- g get that t-that that some some people like to go to sleep in the city and that frequently they even try to close their eyes as early as 11 U 0 o'clock clock although that seem very old fashioned The motorcycle riders wait until about midnight so that these old fashioned persons can be sure to be sound a asleep leep and start their machines chugging around the residence streets x a One motorcycle will make more noise than twenty automobiles and we have never yet caught any motorcycle rider making apparent effort to lessen the volume of noise his machine makes There Bert eer- eer certainly t inlay ought to be some way out of this difficulty 1 I As s for speed the average motorcycle rider makes the average automobile nobile driver look like he lie is standing still We Ve also heard some sometime sometime t time ago that the bicycles were to be forced to use a bell so that they o b ld ild not oot come sneaking up on a man so he is liable to jump in the therong vr rong ng direction We Ve have heard no more about it but bait we have t been frightened ourselves five or six times since we learned that this nuisance was going to be stopped j I I Speeders have been beon immune so long from punishment they h vo all gone wild ild again and we presume they will all be allowed to tog g their own sweet w way y until there is isa a sickening tragedy that brings gf t e 3 people and the officials momentarily to realization a-realization of the danger iI Then a lot of good resolutions will be made the tho mayor mayora a the chief of police will issue interviews to the newspapers in inh which h ch they will point out the terrible punishment they are going to mete ete out to all the reckless automobilists and two or three days later lateri laterio i io will all be forgotten and the tho fun will start all over again I j- j The rhe dead grow cold so soon that it seems seems impossible to make an ana a agitation tation against reckless driving last very long even when there thore has hasben ben been bren a killing W i wi iwi wis s Now the bad part of this speeding business is the fact that the i sAfe and d sane drivers and we believe that there are many more gare- gare a I f drivers than there are aro reckless ones have to suffer for the sins o fl the selfish ones J 1 3 Like the preacher who goes wrong tha reckless automobilist is isi i the limelight The careful driver like the minister who does his d ty attracts no particular attention He lIe is expected to be careful i When there is an accident and the pedestrian is really at fault t tie the safe and cOI- cOI automobilist is absolutely blameless The i nevertheless gives him the tho worst of it He lIe is paying tho the penalty of being classed with the few reckless and criminal drivers 4 LS a matter of fact t the e percentage of careless pedestrians is very uch larger than the percentage of reckless drivers only they do not tract so much attention I If the children were kept away from the wheel and the reckless rivers fivers were punished then we could afford to take a calm and fair fairview view 0 ew w of an accident and we would not be so quick to jump to con- con that the automobilist is always to blame when a pedestrian hurt if I |