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Show oo CHANGE THE LAIS FOB AUTO TKL "We now have too much automobile law," says H. M. Rowe, president of the American Autombile association. "The next trend must be toward the elimination of all unnecessary requirements require-ments and the enactment of a few simple rules and regulations that may be easily understood, easily enforced, and, as nearly as possible, universally observed. Such an elimination would in many instances do away with about three-fourths of our present laws. "But traffic rules and regulations are yet in their formative period. Much remains to be done before avoidable avoid-able accidents may be reduced to a minimum. The principal difficulty is the unwillingness of the public to accept ac-cept and obey such rules and regulations. regu-lations. While there has been some change in its attitude within the last year or so there still remains an Immense amount of educational work before we can hope to secure that co-operation from the public which is necessary to the efficient working out of any set of rules for the road and the government of its traffic. "It is needless to say that the motorists mo-torists themselves deplore most keenly keen-ly the steadily increasing number of accidents and fatalities occasioned by the use of the motor car, but the people peo-ple have not yet come to result of negligence on the part of the public to observe the simplest rules of personal per-sonal safety rather than neglect on the part of the motorist. The utter disregard of his personal safety shown by the average Individual when occupying the publis highways is appalling. ap-palling. "It is a matter of undisputed record that between 90 and 95 per cent of all the accidents that occur result from the neglect of Uie individual pedestrian pe-destrian and less than 5 per cent are caused by tho direct fault of the motorist mo-torist or the reckless uso of the motor car. Lying between these figures some where arc from 3 to 5 per cent of Uie acidents where both parties are responsible. re-sponsible. "Simple as it may seem, a set of traffic rules and regulations that will work out in practice arc not easy to prepare. It follows that rnlps ami rJ ulations which will work out are those that will permit vehicles and in. dividuals to move with the largest degree de-gree of fredom without coming ia contact with each other. Through our legislative board we have set of traffic rules that may b,e easily understood and enforced. Wo are hopeful that they will be generally adopted. Of courso there will bo modifications, in different instances, and of course they will be attended by varying degrees of success In their enforcement and in promoting the purpose of their enactment; but we believo that a substantial sub-stantial uniformity can be established throughout the country. "With the fatalities caused by the 1 carelessness of motorists now reduced to less' than 5 per cent of the whole, if the proper co-operation of tho public pub-lic can bo secured cannot be reasonably reasona-bly hope to reduce the 90 per cent of fatalities attributable to the carelessness careless-ness of individuals to 9 per cent. nn |