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Show AUTO LIGHTS AID TO NIGHTSAFETY Many Motorists Willfully Disregard Legal Requirements Re-quirements of State. Among the worst dangers threatening threaten-ing the motorists who drive at night Is the lack of lights on vehicles. Carelessness, Care-lessness, neglect and indifference are making night driving dangerous. The willful disregard by many motorists of the legal requirements for lights on automobiles1 is an open invitation to accidents. Outside the cities apparently appar-ently little effort Is made to enforce the provisions of the state traffic law concerning them. Travelers Invited. Minnesota boasts of its beautiful lakes, fields and forests, proclaims its fine highways, invites travelers to come, provides recreation spots, summer sum-mer resorts and camp sites for their pleasure and then by negligence exposes ex-poses both Its own citizens and its automobile Tisitors to accident and injury If they drive on the highways at night. So far as automobile? are concerned, con-cerned, the uniform traffic law adopted adopt-ed by the legislature a year ago is specific In its lighting requirements. Two headlights, not dazzling but strong enough to illuminate the road 200 feet ahead, are required. Every automobile must have a tali light visible vis-ible 500 feet from the rear. No provision in the law Is more essential. es-sential. An automobile lacking a tail light Is particularly dangerous. The most careful motorist cannot protect himself against smashing headlong Into In-to some blunderer who Is ambling slowly along with no rear light to warn an approaching motorist, or has parked in the road to change a tire. Law Is Defective. The law Itself Is defective. It requires re-quires night lights' on automobiles, motorcycles, mo-torcycles, trailers, even bicycles. But because some members of the legislature legis-lature were more solicitous for the convenience than for the safety of passengers pas-sengers on horse-drawn vehicles, such vehicles were not included in the general gen-eral provisions concerning lighting. The unlighted wagon or buggy is as difficult to see on the road at night as an a'ltomobile. Yet it can be driven driv-en anywhere without lights, front or rear. The legislature overlooked the fact that parking regulations in the uniform traffic code cover all vehicles, not merely motor vehicles. The lighting light-ing exception therefore does not extend ex-tend to horse-drawn vehicles that are standing still. It Is absurd but it Is tnie that unlighted hayracks, buggies ai;d wagons may be driven lawfully without any light whatsoever on the highways of this state, but once they I ve ceased moving, the law demands a light. Defective as they are, the automo-mobiie automo-mobiie lighting regulations are not enforced. Enforcement Is left to local lo-cal police authorities. They are not on the Job. Cars with one headlight, cars without tail lights, even cars with no lights at all, are encountered on the most heavily traveled highways In the state. Minnesota needs a state highway patrol force to effectuate these elementary rules. St. Paul Dispatch. |