| Show UNRAVEL ROAD legislation joint committee working to bring about simplicity efficiency a and nd uniformity of laws law to bring about revision ot of state road laws along lines that will mill efficient management kand and where desirable uniformity I 1 IB thi the task undertaken ba b a special joint committee appointed at the third american road congress and depre renting the american bar association and the american tion llie magnitude intricacy and political and technical difficulties ol of the undertaking are discussed in an ail article prepared for the engineering record ba b J E chief of 0 the division of 0 road economics of the united states office of 0 public roads between three and four our million words comprise existing road legisla tion IQ in the several states according tc the estimate of officials in the office ol of public roads roada this great wilderness ot of worda would mould make up an edition ol of 30 fair sized volumes in view viea ol of the comparative simplicity ot of the sub eject this last laet accumulation ot of stat utes ute according to mr Is a scathing c com 0 mentar on the con the sta statesmanship t es manship of our legis gators for man marl generations there la Is scarcely a doubt that at least 85 pel pei cent of the legislation Is superfluous and that entire aside irom from the mat ter of reform exacts exactly the same pur poses contemplated in the existing leg isolation Islat lon could be accomplished with greater effect effectiveness heness with one eighth of the existing statute laws the compilers have found legisla tion still in fit effect almost identical a to form arid and substance with mith the old colonial road laws which were mere in turn based upon english precedent extend ing back to the time of queen elia both beth they liane have found statutes so in conflict as to make efu dent and responsible administration utterly impossible As an example ol of the bewildering beN ring confusion of existing legislation the compilers came across in the statutes of one of our most pro gress gres ive sive states a recent enactment enact meni amending a road law which was ro re pealed two years before the amend merit ment was mas pissed passed and et apparently apparent none of the legislators have thus tai fat become acquainted with the situation |
