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Show speed and your p(x:ketbook. Excessive pressure on the accelerator acceler-ator has sent thousands of automobile automo-bile passengers, drivers, and pedes-trains pedes-trains hurtling to destruction, and is refJponsible for more than half of our 30,000 deaths and 850,000 injuries annually, according to the National Bureau of Casualty and Surety Underwriters. Un-derwriters. Thus far, humanitarian considerations considera-tions apparently have not impressed drivers as reason for exercising greater care in regard to speed. However, How-ever, recent investigations of Clarence P. Taylor of the Massachusetts Motor Vehicle department, constitute a serious ser-ious challenge to the average driver's pocketbook, and may therefore bear greater weight. It is vastly more expensive, Mr. Taylor found, to operate an automobile automo-bile at speeds in excess of 30 miles per hour. The faster a car goes beyond be-yond that rate, the more gas it consumes con-sumes per mile at 75 miles per hour over twice as much gasoline is required re-quired to go the same distance as at 20 miles per hour. In addition, wear and tare on the tires and on the car mechanism itself is greatly increased, so that a motor vehicle habitually driven at high speeds wears out much quicker than a car driven at moderate moder-ate speeds. The subject of "safe speeds" is everywhere controversial, but it is agreed that conditions on the highway high-way must govern acceleration. It is frequently as dangerous to drive plowly on an express highway as it is to speed through congested districts. dis-tricts. Speeds in excess of 45 miles per hour, it is said, are almost always al-ways in the danger zone. Drivers, moderate your speeds to suit them to conditions on the highways. high-ways. You will save money in gasoline gaso-line consumption, repair bills, taxes and insurance costs and, above all, you will save lives. |