The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1916-08-30

MIGHT LIMIT MACHINES
Speed Of Each Auto Could be "ade
No More Than Law Al
lows, Experts
Believe.

An exchange has the following.
which applies everywhere in Iowa
and probably everywhere in the Unit
ed States:
Sometime ago the writer was rid.
ing over the Chicago boulevard sys-
tenn with gentleman whose son was
driving the car when we came very
nearly running down couple riding
a motorcycle. When this occurred
the older man, who is very eau
tious driver. exclaimed, IF you want
to make fool Of man just put him
behind the wheel of an automobile"
The bulletin of the Iowa State
Highway commission in its last issue
gives the cheerful information. which
has been published by many Of the
papers of the state, that thirty-one
der inside Of five weeks time.
It Is found that during the same
five weeks in which thirty-one people
went to their deaths that twenty-nine
persons had bones broken, twenty-six
received internal injuries. thirty-six
were cut and bruised, one-half of
these accidents caused by speeding,
eighteen hurt in auto collisions, thir-
teen hurt in collisions with buggies,
six hurt in collisions with motor
cycles, five hurt when autos smashed
into street cars, twenty persons
struck by cars and hurt in crossing
streets and forty-eight accidents
where autos smashed and no one was
hurt. A total of PIG accidents with,
16s people hurt, almost every bit OF
it because of somebody's foolishness.
During the past few weeks and
within period of less than weeks
time we read Of three instances where
fools have tried to beat railroad trains
to the crossings and have had at
least six persons killed for their fool
hardness. ALI this leads one to be-
lieve that should the foolkiller come
to Iowa he would have big job on
his hands.
Shall we go on with this liberation
of fools and automobiles" or shall
we stop it? Infantile paralysis comes
to Iowa and we count forty cases in
months time and the state goes
wild with excitement. We summon
the entire wealth and energy of the
state that we may save the children
(Which is very right and proper) and
then we let the fool who does rot
know any more than to run a DEAN
dealing machine down the street at
the rate of forty or fifty miles an
hour, run them down and kill them.
Under the heading Should the Sale
of High Speed Automobiles be Pro-
hibited by Law in Iowa." the High
way Bulletin has the following to
say:
Limiting the speed of cars allowed
to be sold in the state is the only
effective way to curb the motor speed
mania and prevent the killing and
manning of people by reckless, mex
perienced and incompetent drivers.
Laws naming speed limits Of so many
miles per hour, or as Iowa puts it,
reasonable speed with twenty-five
miles per hour presumptive evidence
that a driver is exceeding reasonable
speed are utterly worthless. There is
seldom car goes on the road in
Iowa today when roads are fairly
good, but what breaks the Iowa speed
law. Fines assessed against the drfv-
ers of cars, are joke. Speed fans
boast of how many they have to paw,
and are proud Of the number.
GAS long as manufacturers are al
lowed to sell and people to buy, cars
capable of making greater than TWEEN
ty-five TO thirty miles per hour on the
public highways, 1t will be absolutely
impossible for any state by law to
prevent cars running at rates of
speed, dangerous not only to the
driver and occupants of the car, but
and this is the criminal part--dan-
gerous to the general public and other
users of the highway. II the speed
maniac and his immediate friends
were the only ones to suffer or get
killed. there would be comparatively
few to object.
1.-THE occasions when speed more
than twenty-five or thirty miles per
hour can be justified or excused, are
so few as to be absolutely negligible.
Peoples time Is not so extreme ely
valuable that the few minutes gained
by excessive sped will ever justify
their making themselves menace 70
other users of the highway.
Low speed cars need not mean
low powered or light engined cars.
They can be built for any power de-
sirable for emergencies where power
is needed, but geared to make speed
beyond reasonable limits practically
imposSibIe