The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1912-05-26
BAN FOR RECKLESS
DRIVERS IS URGED
irresponsible Auto Handlers
Great Menace to Pub
lie Safety.

One Of the greatest detriments to
the automobile game today rs the
speed crank-the man who loves 10
drive his car at top speed--sometimes
averaging sixty miles an hour in a
country that is not safe at thirty miles
per hour. Because the automobile OF
TODAY can develop so or 70-horsepower
does not mean that il should be driven
that MANY miles an hour, Power in a
car is made more for climbing hills or
getting out OF tight places.
Attention has been called to an artl.
Gle by Colonel Edward 5. Cornell. presi-
dent of the National Highways Protec-
tive society, on the necessity for curb
ing irresponsible drivers on the road;
"We lose more lives annually
through the mania which leads TO mur,
der he says. "The craze for soeed
in the United States. and more espe,,
cially in the very thickly populated
sections, is becoming community brain
storm, and that mcaus-general deter
ioraton. The automobile has no better
friends than may be found among the
members of the National highways
Protective society, but we abhor the
driver of the juggernaut. Like any
other excess, indulgence in high speed
becomes real intoxication; intoxica-
tion makes men irresponsible, and any
man who loses sense of his RESPONSE
bility is a menace to his fellow citl-
Zens.
''What we object to is putting the
motor car to base, unworthy uses. Not
long ago all men objected when it be-
came the vehicle by means OF which
band of bandits travelled to their crime,
and afterward escaped. Is the man who
plans and deliberately carries out a
robbery by means OF an automobile
much worse than the man who, through
sheer carelessness, converts his motor
car into an instrument OF death TO
others7 s
''He is. Of course. for the one man is
premeditatedly criminal. while the
other accomplishes offcnse through
foolish, not deliberate selfishness; but
the scorcher's menace to the public life
and welfare is as great as any bandit S
and there are far more of the former
than there are of the latter.
"Tbe menace which we now find on
our streets does not grow out OF the
progression through them of the limou-
sine or touring car or runabout OF the
respectable, calm minded business or
professional man, but intrust to the
ungoverned hands of irrespon sible such
potential instruments of carnage as
the modern high powered motor car;
and disaster is too likely to descend
upon some innocent head. The citizen
who has developed the ability to think
correctly, and acts in due accordance
with his thinking. may enjoy. upon oc-
casion, rapid movement, and even may
indulge in it; but he will not by this
propensity OF this indulgence imperil
other peoples lives.
''Thcre is a feeling in some quarters
that the National Highways Protective
society is opposed to motoring. 1t is
not. On the other hand, large pro-
portion of its members own automo-
biles-but they drive them sanely.
A score of years ago man who
drove horse through New York IS
streets at twenty miles an hour wonld
make the populace hold up their hSads
in horror and would be stopped aud
carted to the police station before he
had progressed five blocks. Such speed
was not as dangerous in those days as
it is In these; yet how many times
day can any of us see motor racing
up or down our avenues Mt twice TWEEN
ty miles an hour7 No special legisla-
tion was required to stop mad drivers
in past days. AS public perils they
we're very promptly put in prison"
Dancing every evening at Saltair be-