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Show A Case History An editorial published in Deseret News April 23, 1957) The slaughter of two young mothers, a father and two babies in a single moment of carelessness is shocking aod tragic almost beyond words. But two lessons arising rrom it ought to be expressed. One we mention only in passing. It is thaf .? five who were killed were all thrown out of their respective cars. The one who survived, with only minor injuries, stayed stay-ed inside. Safety belts might have saves some lives here. The other lesson is far more serious, far more grim, far more heart-breaking even than that. This wreck was almost a classic case study in what some of us have long been insisting must be eliminated to make the highways safe. We are far from insensitive to the grief of tiie young man who has lost his wife and infant son. We would spare him further mental anguish. But the lesson his case teaches teach-es MUST be learned by the public, and there is no, other way to learn except by discussing it. v The shocking fact is that within a period of one year and one month, beginning April 18, 1955, this.young man was convicted of five traffic violations, including improper impro-per passing, running a red light, running a stop sign, speeding speed-ing 20 miles over the limit, and negligent driving. On the fifth conviction his drivers, license was suspended for six months. , '. . , Three months and one weekt later, he was convicted again, this time for driving with a suspended license. He was fined $10 by a justice of the peace and his license suspended sus-pended an additional six months.... ; " That was last September. Sunday, stilHith a suspended sus-pended license, he was involved in an accident that wiped out five lives. . . Frankly, this scares us almost out of our cars. Who is. to say when our family or yours will be out for a social, drive and will be wiped out by someone whose carelessness has cost him his' license but who is driving anyway? Does a license revocation no longer mean anything? any-thing? Has the driver's license .become just a scrap of paper? The state system is not to blame in this case. The law provides for automatic suspension of a license after the .third moving violation in. an 18-month period. This vas'done in the case under discussion. Two other suspensions suspen-sions followed. But apparently that didn't mean anything. This man kept on driving; so, we fear, do countless others. Driving with a suspended license is a misdemeanor punishable by a $299 fine andor, six-month jail sentence. This is hardly stiff enough, considering the deliberate scoff-law attitude involved. 0But this man when caught, paid $10. Well, what does all this rneanT It means, this attitude j we have adopted, that there i' traffic .death every 13 minutes over 40,000 a year;; it means a traffic injury every 12 seconds 1, 00,000 a '-year; it means a traffic accident ac-cident every four seconds rnorthan 11 million a year. The annual "economic loss frtom.this sorry spectacle exceeds ex-ceeds $6.5 billion. J America has faced such challenges before. Goaded into war, wehave gone in witfe. ajj ive had, and won. Preyed Prey-ed on by gangsterism, we mustered our law officers in all-out all-out effort, and won. This ghastly traffic toll is a challenge of even greater proportions. Can 'we fight it and win? We can, if we will go all-out in the fight. If we realize that all our persuasion, all our education does not reach xniw drivers, snd if wc v.sgc rcnl .vnr cn three 'rents the police, the traff c court and the driver licensing authoritywe auth-oritywe can win. But to do it, the public must first make a basic change in its thinking. f We must recognize that there is no such thing as a "right'- to drive on public streets and highways. These streets are built by the public for the benefit and safety of the public, and only the person who shows proper respect re-spect for that safety should have the privilege to drive on them. Until public opinion enforces this point of view, judges will continue, to give $10 fines for the most flagrant offenses, of-fenses, drivers will continue to ignore suspensions, and innocent people will continue to be needlessly, shamefully killed. |