OCR Text |
Show CHILD'S PLAY REGULATION OF AUTOMOBILES The state cf California is v.arring against glaring and illegal Lc8.dIi.iLis, fcliowL.g a period of prosecution and license-re vokin. of careless drivers. The example of California can be followed throughout the country with better results than are obtained from stale legislatures debating on the advisability of adopting compulsory automobile liability insurance laws as a means of protecting the public. Enforcing Enforc-ing our present laws will assure greater safety to pedestrians and drivers than will the passage -of more laws to relieve careless automobile auto-mobile drivers of financial responsibility for their own reckless acts. If state legislatures want to pass new laws, why not establish uniform traffic rule3 and signals in every town and state throughout the country. At the present time no two sets of road signs or signals are aliicc in different cities. As an example, take Portland, Oregon. Certain streets will have yellow stop signs and posts near the curbing. Then without warning, a driver will come to a sign in the pavement whicl. says "stop." Nine chances to one he wiil never see it because h will be looking for the yellow signal at the side of the street. Ow other streets he will find an automatic electric signal with red, green and yellow lights located at the side of the street. At another intersection inter-section he will, without any warning, com"; upon an electric sign... suspended some 25 feet from ground in the center of the interscc tion. Under such conditions a driver's attention is constantly diverted divert-ed from traffic before him in an effort to find the traffic signals, and thereby obey the law. Similar confused conditions exist in most cities. What is to prevent adoption of painted sk-ns or electric signals of uniform design which are always to be located at the same position at street intersections j Why should the state highway guide posts in Oregon be white, while they are yellow in California? Why should the stop signs for through highways in Oregon be yellow, and stop signs put up by the same highway department for a railroad rail-road crossing, white? Vhy should not all danger signals on highways high-ways be of one color? Why pa'-;s innumerable laws, ordinances and rules to confuse drivers, and then expect to reduce accidents? Accident prevention is equally important in all parts of the country. Then why not have uniform signals and regulations, Most automobile traffic regulation up to date is child's play compared with the simple but effective signals which govern all the railroads in the country. |