The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-11-23
1.-THE MOTOR VEHICLE LAW OF CONNECTICUT"

760 registrations in 1911, $23O12O.S9.
 In this is included the fees from 206 registrations of dealers and eight registrations of manufacturers.
 The revenue was greater under this law owing to the fact it had been dis covered that, under the law of 1907, cars registered once were run under the one official set of markers sent at the time of registration for two or three years thereafter without again registering, and to remedy this evas- ion of the law the office had the law of 1909 so drafted as to make all reg
 istrations expire January 1st., of each year, and adopted the method of changing the color of the markers
 each year, so that the police and con-
 stabulary could tell immediately by Il the color of the marker attached to the car the year it was issued for, I and thus detect attempted evasion Of the law.
 In carrying out the provisions of the law the number of markers neces- Sary for the year was estimated and ordered. The office secured by means of a contract with a local agent, the shipment of such markers to the own CTS, and as a result of this arrange ment the owner could receive his
 markers as soon as his registration was completed, providing the express company worked as fast with the : markers as Uncle Sam did with the
 mail.
 Motor Vehicle Department Formed. | Under this law it was deemed ad- visable to form separate department in the office of the secretary known
 as the Motor Vehicle Department, of (which the office force now consists of
 8 chief clerk and eight assistants.
 The mode of procedure necessary to obtain a registration is as follows: | A blank card is furnished the ape l plicant which must be filled in with l the name and address of the person requesting the registration, together
 with a full description of the car to l be registered and must then be re- | turned to the office with the proper
 fees. The office records are then eA-
 amined to ascertain if the applicant
 has previously held registratlon; if so, the same number is assigned to him, but if not, then a new serial
 number is given to the applicant. The 1 card is then passed to the billing clerk, who computes the fees and compares the remittance, and. if cor
 rect, entry is made in the. cash book and certificate is made out and for
 warded to the applicant if the fee
 sent is not sufficient, the clerk bills | the applicant for amount due and
 registration is held up until the cor
 rect amount is received.
 | Conduct of the Office. 1 At the close of each days business
 a list is made of all registrations and |
 markers. This list is made in tripii-
 cate, the original being in the form | of perforated labels which are torn off and attached to the package con-
 taining the markers. the second one
 is used as a receipt from the express
 company, being signed by their :, agent, and the third copy is kept as an office record. Another clerk then
 takes the original application and
 makes out two office stub cards Gone l .IDy, Inn iuir1 1o1 hnf h copies being passed to another clerk
 who numbers all three cards to cor
 respond to the number assigned, and | these are then passed to the filing
 alphabetical order, one stub in the
 numerical file and the other two in
 file arranged by towns, so when com- pleted our records stand finished in
 the following way:
 FirSt-An Alphabetical File. | Second-A numerical File.
 l Third-A Location File.
 1 In this way we can readily refer Go any owner either by name, by the
 number of his registration or by the town in which he resides.
 l The, same procedure is followed in the case of motor cycle owners al operators of both motor vehicles and motor cycles, except that they are not | filed by localities.
 The three ideals affOrding a perfect | law were forked out in the law of 1911, which was enacted by the gen. l era1 assembly after many public | hearings and conferences with the
 state and local automobile. associa- tions, the secretary and the state grangerS.
 By this law the secretary was given
 full power to suspend a license for
 any cause which he deemed sufficient,
 January 1st., 1911, 772 cases have been investigated, 65 hearings held
 and 7S suspensions made.
 Evils of Old System.
 In some of our city courts a system | has been adopted of having the city ! prosecutor enter a nolle upon the payment of costs, in eases of violation of the motor vehicle law. This re- ! suited in two-fold evil; it allowed some habitual offender to escape | without the secretary being informed that he had been before the court, | unless it was discovered by the way | of newspaper report and it often
 money rather then be subjected to | notoriety or to employ counsel, even
 though he felt he was not guilty. This | was changed by the law so that both costs were to be returned to the sec- retary.
 | Another change, and that was due ! largely to an agreement which was | entered lnLO Dy COnnect1cuC with | sachusetts, was, that if any Con-
 necticut operator was arrested in Massachusetts and was released on l his own recOgnizance and failed to appear in the courts of that state, he | should be given the alternative of so | appearing or lose his license. This led, after having been enforced in one | instance, to the passage of a law al- l lowing an operator guilty of some | minor offenSe to be released upon | his own recognizance, and extended to | the citizens of other states which granted like procedure to residents of | the state. The office then solicited the i cooperation of neighboring states, but the Bay State was the onlv one | to respond and has been working in absolute harmony with us, while New | York has asked us to pay for a cer- | tlfied copy of record of a registration | in order to convict one of it's residents
 who was driving a machine under
 New York markers without a regis | tration.
 Reciprocity a Good Thing. Inasmuch as the states of Massa- | chuSettS and Connecticut were work | ing harmony, the passage was Secur- ed of provision requiring a garage | keeper to maintain a record of all | transient cars left or stored with him, together with a record of their own
 CTS and operators. Under the old law
 an operator after an accident could | remove the markers of the car when | in garage and ciuo Soy,,a fiotitio,1o