The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-05-14
AUTOMOBILES AND ROADS.

~
A great many people. in fact. large
majority of the public, have been IA
boring under the impression that auto
mobiles do not have any injurious eff
feet on roads. This impression is not
shared by James H. Macdonald. high
way commissioner of the state of Con-
necticut, who says in an article in The
Good Roads Magazine:
In nine out of ten of our towns
where macadam roads have been con-
structed, artificial moistening of roads
is not resorted~to by the officials. The
use of the sprinkling cart seems to be
lost art, and the only moisture the
macadam receives is from the rain and
the dew. except, of course, in winter
when there are occasional snowstorms
For that reason our macadam r0ads are
very dry in summer and become an
easy prey to rapidly moving automo-
bfles The lOw-hanging machinery of
the car restricts the space from the top
of the road to a narrow opening which
the rapidly moving car transforms into
draft, the suction from which re-
moves all loose or insecure particles
from the surface of the road, very
much as a carpet-sweeper operates.
In the summer time, particularly
when our roads are very popular, ami
are used largely by all kinds of We
hicles. either for business or pleasure,
the passing of one of these rapidly
moving cars removes from the road
its intended protection. Horse-drawr
vehicles that follow are by this ST. ip-
ping process brought into direct con-
tact with the stones that have been un-
covered by the automobile. These
stones are early dislodged from WHERE
they were embedded, and a fracture is
made i'm the road. The stones thus
loosened act as an irritant to the other
stones when struck by hoof or wlieel,
the bond is broken, and the road i'm
mediately demands repair, or a large
bill of expense will result. If the raj
is not at once taken care of, the ir-
fluence of even slight fracture is far
reaching. This destructive force has
been at work for some time, but its eff
fects have been more noticeable during
the past year than ever before
Mr.. Macdonald suggests that drivers
of automobiles ought to be required to
pay for the damage the cars are al
legged to cause. His theory is, as far as
we are informed. entirely new and it
will take demonstrations all over the
country to convince automobile Owners
that he is right in his theory. But if
they do seriously damage the roads
they should be required to pay the bills
At the same time Mr.. Macdonald might
institute a campaign to compel owners
of other vehicles to pay for the damage
their wheels cause to the public high
that one heavily loaded traffic wagon
will do more harm to any road than
dozen automobiles.
Another fact should be taken into
consideration before bills are presented
to automobile owners. 1t is that the
owners of automobiles have done more
during the few years that the horseless
vehicles have come into general use to
improve the highways of the country
than the owners of horse-drawn We
hicles have done in all the years before
1t has been said that the devil is en-
titled to his dues. We move 70 amend
by inserting, after the word devil the
words, land the automobile owner"