The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1905-09-11
TO STOP FAST
AUTO DRIVING
State Organization Form ed
to Fight the Reckless
Autoist
BRANCHES IN EVERY COUNTY
SPENCER WEART SAYS ROADS
ARE DESTROYED BY FAST
DRIVING. AND PEOPLE HAVE
40 SAFE RIGHTS on THEM.

no SAFE RIGHTS on THEM.
Am organization to fight fast automo-
! bile driving has been formed ut Bound
Brook and branches ase to be estab-
hshed in every county in the State. J.
G. Higgins is secretary and also editor
Of the ''Highway Protectors Bulletin
which is issued by the ASSOCIATION.
Tie FIRST number of the Bulletin is at
T hand and the spirit shows that the fight
wiA be carried on vigorously.
Spencer Weart's letter to the Somer-
set Freeholders is republished. He was
former Corporation Counsel of Jersey
City and has summer home at Clyde.
He refers TO the actual destruction of
certain roads by fast driving, while the
/ people whose money built them do not
have safe rights on them and strong
men ordinary capable to manage a horse
are compelled by fear to abandon them =
He suggests the building Of deep depres-
siops in the roads at certain distances
sufficient to break machine going at a
high speed.
Editor Higgins, in discussing the 'sAu-
onaobile Problem, says:
As the reckless use of the highways
by the owners of machines has every
where become of such common everyday
occurrence, it rs now high time that those
who are opposed to the usurpation of
inalienable rights and who are in favor
of more stringent measures being adopt
ed to prohibit the turning of the high
ways into race tracks for the use of the
modern juggernauts, should arise as a
body for the purpose of instituting pro-
ceedings that win effectually wipe out
whnt is at the present day one of the
growing and gratest curses that has ever
been inflicted upon the public at large.
A large proportion of the automobilists
are apparently Hanng, sporting set.
without any regard whatever for the
rights Of others. judging from the way
they run, in a rampant manner, through
out the length and breadth of the land
| spreading death and destruction in their
wake.
There is a great hue and cry about
these machines being such wonderful
invention for the benefit of mankind. and
i so are railroad locomotives when in their
1 proper place upon their own special
tracks. But in the present state of the
art Of the automobile industry. as far as
their adaptability for use on the com
mon highways is concerned, the above
claim is all bosh, for where they are of
any real practical value to one single in
dividual. his use of them always proves
detrinent to hundreds of others.
! Thousands of men and women who had
Il prior right. and who took pleasure in
driving horses upon the roads. have been
forced off of them entirely. The wear
and tear of machines are many times
greater upon macadam and telford road
beds than horse drawn vehicles, as they
pick up the expensive top dressing put
upon theroads by taxpayers and throw it
to the wings Of the wind. and dust is
thereby scattered broadcast over long
sstretch-coyering everybody and every
thing within reach. and the smooth roads
in vogue before they came are made
rough by their use and rapidly deterio-
rated.
1 Hence there is an urgent necessity that
something should be done, and the soon
el the better, to safeguard the interests
1 of the great majority against the en-
croachments Of this high-handed domin-
eerilig minority but which happily com
prises but d very small percentage of the
whole population.
i AS to the most feasible mode Of pro-
cedure in such a matter. the first and
most important step is to get the people
together, and the most expedient method
| BY Which, 70 accomplish this, is to or
ganize-