The Sunday telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1914-1927, 1916-07-02
And Same is Bound to Affect
FavOrabIy the Condition Of
the Public Roads.

WASHINGTON. July In 1905
there were $4,000 motor cars, includ-
Ing commercial vehicles, in the Unit
ed States, according to the registra-
ton statistics assembled by the Di-
vision Of Road Economics of the
United States Office of public roads
and rural engineering; in 1915 there
were 2.445,664. This was an in
crease of 5000 per cent. Ten years
ago of the expenditures on account
of the building of rural roads ana
bridges in the United States less than
three-tenths of one per cent was de-
rived from the tax on motor vehicles;
last year nearly seven per cent OF
the money available for this purpose
was derived from this source. In
1901 the first revenue derived by
any of the states from automobile
revenues was collected in New York
state and amounted to only 1854.
other states followed the example oil
New York. requiring the registration
of motor cars, chauffeurs and opera
tors, until in 1905 the total amount
collected in all the states on this &C
count aggregated S62,50O; last year
the revenues from this source
amounted to $1S,245,7lS. In near
ly all the states practically ninety
per cent of the motor car revenues
was applied in 1915 to road work
and seventy per cent of this sum was
expended under the control and SUI
pervision of the state highway de-
partments. In forty-two states all, or
a large part OF the revenue from mo-
tor cars must be expended for the
construction, Improvement or main
tenance of the public reads, or for
the maintenance of the state highway
departments In six states this re-
quirement is not made.
One for Each Mile.
In 1915 the total number Of mo,
tor vehicles registered in the United
States was 2,445,664. The total
road mileage in the United States
outside Of incorporated towns and
cities is approximately 2,275,OOO
miles. This would mean that there
is slightly more than one motor car
for each mile of rural road in the
United States, If the distribution OF
the cars were uniform for all the
states; but it is not, as in the state
of Nevada, there is one motor car
for every six miles of rural road, and
in New Jersey six motor cars for ev-
cry mile of rural road. In the Unit
ed States there is one motor car reg
istration for every sixteen persons
and in Alabama oily one registration
for every two hundred persons.
No Fee Uniformity.
There is no uniformity in the fees
required of motor vehicles, and there
are wide differences in the require
ments for the registration or licens-
ing of chauffeurs, owners, dealers
and operators. The tendency is
growing to base the registration fees
for pleasure cars on straight horse
power; for commercial vehicles the
tendency is to require a part of the
fec on the horse power Of the car
and the remainder of the fee, either
on the carrying capacity of the We
hicle or on its weight. The average
fee of the motor cars in the United
States, taking them by and large, is
estimated at $7.46. Reckoning on
the same basis, the state OF Vermont
received in 1915 a gross revenue OF
$3.50 for each car while Minnesota
received only about fifty cents an
nually for each car, the registration