Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-10-15

on the right hand. side of a locomotives
cab, does he Immediately pull the throttle
wide open and let her out the full distance
of his run? Not he.
Whenever he approaches a curve he
brings his engine to that speed at which
the curve can be taken in safety to every
body and everything concerned. Every
i bridge has its certain limit speed, which
he observes On certain straight stretches.
where he knows that it can be done in
safety, he gathers speed, running at a rate
perhaps eighty miles an hour. But on
other stretches, where there are intersec-
tfons, possibly, or a bridge or two, he does
not attempt to make over twenty or twen-
ty-five miles an hour, and often less than
that
"All this is on a track, roadbed, spe-
cially prepared for locomotive travelling
and speeding-a track every foot of which
is constantly watched with numerous eagle
eyes and kept up to the highest standard,
and along which numerous signals are set
and many trusted men are stationed to aid
and guard the engineer in his flight, no
matter whether that be fifteen miles an
hour in the limits of some town or city, or
ninety miles across a stretch of prairie,
with scarcely a roll in it. And yet in spite
of all safeguards that are thrown round
the running of a locomotive, accidents hap
pen-terrible accidents, that startle the
COuHITy every now ana then.
Now, the locomotive is mechanism of
multiplied horse power. So is the auto
mobile-and it is just as capable of reach
ing and maintaining high speed--twenty.
hve, forty, sixty, eighty miles an hour. But
mark the primary condition under which
the automobile is run-over a roadbed pre-
pared with never a thought of it and guard
ed not an automobiles length of the way.
Couple to this the facts that it is inpos-
slble for the average automobilist to have
even cursory knowledge of more than a
rev miles of road, comparatively speaking
ana that ne has to take no examination to
prove that he has working knowledge of
the machines mechanism, and it is not
very difficult to comprehend that nothing
short of fiendish recklsssness is the sole
cause or practically all automobile wrecks
and accidents, with their frequent attend-
ant fatalities and never-faiing injuries
NOT long ago a man of my acquaint-
ance. who had owned thirty-horse
power touring car less than a month. took
1t out to speed it over a piece of road
over which he had never travelled ONLY
kind Providence kept him from wrecking
MS machine while taking two exceedingly
sharp and unexpected curves at startling
speed. AS 1t was, wheel finally struck
deep rut on straight stretch the ma
chine swerved suddenly. struck a stone
pie on the roadside full tilt and was
completely wrecked; while the man was
nurieo, as II from catapult, into a near
by field was picked up unconscious and
taken home, where the family physician
him on his feet again
Inc reckless automobilist of which this
man was type until the accident knocked
some sense into his head and knocked ont
nIs hiahia TOT speed, utterly oyerlooks the
parent tact that speeding on road NOT
pullt Tor 1t and of whose twistirlgs and
turnlngs and other peculiarities he is rather
more, than less, ignorant, is humanity GER
TAN 10 result in an accident to machine
ana driver sooner or later Such an ulti-
mate result is as natural as that two and
two makes four. For if locomotives and
the trains of cars they draw are frequently
wrecked on specially prepared roadbeds and
despite all manner of safeguards that I'M,
man ingenuity can invent and annIv how,
can 1t be otherwise than that wrecks and
accidents should mark the flight of tbe
reckless automobilist, speeding as he does
over the meanest and crookedest of dirt
roads with the same abandon that cbars
acterizes him on the finest and strafghtest
Oh Weil-kept macadam stretches?
Don't deceive yourself into believing that
this is not the customary result of reck-
lessness. because the number of accidents
to automobiles and their occupants is rela-
lively small compared with the whole num-
Der of machines in use; close on to % 900
automobiles are licensed In the state of
New York alone. Rather, let this be evil
dence In your mind in support of the de-
cent automobilist's statement that the num-
Der of reckless drivers. both professionals
and amateurs is considerably less than 10
per cent of the whole Once the public
generally arrives at this wholly sane con-
ciusion by the very simple method of COM
pairing the ways of the careful locomotive
driver and the needless motor car driver
the present prejudice against us as a class
will vanish and the public will get after
the real criminals In SO determined q fash