Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1913-01-24

delay suffered by the walking public.
This phase of the case is incapable
of statistical representation, but every
person who attempts to cross a street
or to enter or leave street car where
automobiles are numerous knows what
it means
'The effect of the increase in aver
age speed are seen not only in open
streets and avenues frequented by auto
mobiles, but in parts of the city in
which the volume of travel by vehicles
and on foot is so great that high rate
of speed is impossible.
''The owner of an automobile, who
rushes through the streets and avenues
leading to the heart of the city and
thereupon finds that he must reduce his
speed and take his turn with others,
is quite likely to become impatient, to
forget where he is, to revile in his heart
and sometimes by word of mouth the
policeman who holds him in check, and
to regard all other vehicles and pedes
trians, too, as merely obstacles to his
progress.
"The automobile act of 1909 declared
that in thicky settled places a speed
above fifteen miles an hour for an
eighth of a mile should be prima facia
evidence of violence of the law That
provision is known to all drivers of
automobiles and to large part of the
public; but the public has little knowl-
edge of the difficulty of enforcing it.
| think am right in believing that any
specific maximum of speed is sure to be
treated by many drivers, if not ma
jority, as a minimum; and it is hard to
convince an owner or driver whose car
is capable of travelling forty or fifty
miles an hour that he is not extremely
moderate when he runs it at rate of
twenty to thirty miles.
The violations of the automobile
laws are so numerous that if the num-
Der of policemen assigned to automo-
bile work could be without limit, every
municipal and district court in Boston
might be kept busy every day with
automobile prosecutions alone. But
with the present force, no more men
can be spared from their general duties
for this particular work.
but in certain thoroughfares, espe-
cally Boyston and Beacon streets and
/ Commonwealth avenue, extraordinary
measures will be required. In Beacon
street, for example, from the State
/ House to the cross roads, the situation
even now is such during at least five or
six hours of the day that to cross from
one side to the other is difficult and
dangerous. Whenever the city can af-
ford to furnish the men, it will be nee
essary to assign them to fifteen or
twenty street intersections in the thor
oughfares, just named, in additions to
intersections already policed, for duty
in which they never before have been
empoyed-a duty corresponding more
nearly to the use of block signals n
railroads than to legitimate police
work.
Regarding traffic congestion and it's
treatment, Mr.. O'Meara says:
The police cannot widen or straighten
the streets, and neither have they the
power to reduce the number of persons
US ing them. Their task is to insure
fair division without waste, using their
best judgement and supported on the
one hand but bound on the other by
laws and rules which have been made
by other authorities.
Conditions in many parts of the city,
especially that part into which the large
retail stores have been crowded, may be
compared to boat at sea built to carry
five men and overloaded with ten-all
aware of the situation, but not one
willing to drop out or even to withdraw
into smaller space. - Boston Jou rnal.