OCR Text |
Show FIGHTING THE RECKLESS DRIVER This year the month of September has been dedicated to the most intensive campaign in the interest of automobile accident prevention ever carried on in this country. The governors of 34 states and the commissioners of the District of Columbia have issued proclamations and messages. Wore than 90,000,000 persons 74 per cent of our. total population popula-tion live in their- areas. Seventy-five per cent of all automobile in tjte country are registered within them, and last year about 76 per cent of the 29,000 deaths occurred in the participating territory. In 1932 there was a decrease in automobile accidents and fatalities, as compared with 1931. This year the trend has been reversed and the toll is again on the upgrade. The reckless, the discourteous and the incompetent still rule the highways. The public streets and roads are still shambles both for persons and property. Only the individual motorist can conquer this organized destruction. There; are few such things as unavoidable accidents. And it has been proved that raising the safety factors of roads and vehicles does no good the driver simply trusts to the engineers, and operates his car 'even more recklessly. During the September campaign, facts and figures detailing the havoc wrecked by excessive speeds, by violations of right-of-way laws, by passing on curves and hills, by that most common of all motoring ills, discourtesy, will be brought to our attention. And all of us should consider it both a duty and a privilege to cooperate. |