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Show 0 ACCIDENTS AND DIVIDENDS. Ever since the development of mechanical me-chanical traction began to fill the streets of American cities with high-powered, high-powered, higli-spccded electric cars in the place of the old horse-cars, municipal governments have been struggling with the problem of foro ing the companies that operate these machines to pay a decent regard to public safety. All their efforts have been futile. The traction companies Imvp uniformly acted on the nrincinle that it is 'cheaper to kill a certain number of children and cut off a certain cer-tain number of arms and legs every year than to equip their cars with proper safety appliances. That this policy is bad in morals has not disturbed dis-turbed them, but they may pay more attention to accumulating evidences that it is bad business. Some startling facts Ibcaring on this subject have just been made public pub-lic by the president of the Philadcl-tilna Philadcl-tilna Ranid Transit Company. It ap pears that in the year ending June 30, 1907, the company incurred a deficit de-ficit of $364,048.53 after meeting operating oper-ating expenses and fixed charges. In the same year it paid damage claims for accidents to the amount of $1,-217,586.85. $1,-217,586.85. But for this it would have had a surplus of over $853,000 instead of a deficit of a third of a million. Its damage claims absorbed nearly seven per cent of its gross receipts a sum equivalent to two dollars per share on the stock, now barren ot dividends. And this docs not include the cost of the company's expensive legal staff and of its industrious claim adjusters. It is tri ; that President Parsons does not draw the obvious moral from these figures. He lays the blame for the trouble on the enterprise enter-prise of "ambulance-chasing," and announces an-nounces that in the future the company com-pany "will contest in the courts every claim for damages which it considers is not a just one." But an acute fiu-ancicrc fiu-ancicrc whose attention is once fixed upon the subject can hardly fail to sec that if there were no ambulance calls there would be no am'bulancc-chascrs, am'bulancc-chascrs, and that if there were no just claims, unjust ones would have little standing before juries. The two millions mil-lions it had to pay in damages for a single tunnel accident convinced the New York Central that it had been mistaken in thinking it could not.clcc-trify not.clcc-trify its terminal, and when traction companies throughout the country s.rc compelled to choose between killings kil-lings and dividends, they will find ways to prevent the killings. |
