The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1917-07-23
Attorney General Suggests That Care
less Auto Driver Should BE curbes
Before He Becomes Worse
Nuisance.
BECOMES BIG PROBLEM
Twenty Miles an Hour Is Speed SuG.
gested by One Iowa Source az
Safe Medium for
Driving.

! Among other things. the attorney
general has notified the peace officers
OF the state to secure better enforce
ment of the state laws regulating au-
tomobile traffic. 1t is a timely ad-
monition and deserving of the hearty
ivfgilant cooperation of municipal as
well as county authorities. The atten-
ton of the public safety department
is respectfully called to this vitality
important matterimportant because
| of the continuous menace to life and
limb by auto car and bicycle drivers.
| The number of power-driven ve-
hicles Of all kinds is steadily increas-
| ing. 1t is said Iowa has more Of them
than any other state in the union.
With the perils of the streets and
highway steadily increasing, it is es-
sential that the problem of safety
| shall be worked out more successful
| ly than heretofore.
| The following clipping from the
Marshalltown Times-Republican will
give the reader some idea of the alarm
prevailing in other communities in re-
gard to this universal peril. 1t should
be added, however. that high speed is
rot the only cause Of solicitude; great
danger, of daily occurrence, is en-
countered at street intersections and
| at points where street cars stop to let
off and take on passengers. There are
in fact, many phases of auto peril that
tneed to be considered to assure a
reasonable degree of safety. AS to
high and unlawful speeds. noticeable
every day on the streets of Keokuk as
well as Marshalltown and almost
every city in the state, the Times-Re-
No. nf or oi6nntc iS
timely as an incentive to better en-
forcement Of the traffic laws and Or
dinances:
"If all autos were always held down
to twenty miles per hour there would
seldom ever be an accident OF any
kind, but they are not, hence the death
toll in Iowa in one days reports reads
as follows:
"One kellogg man killed, Monday
evening near Colfax, two little girls
and boy bruised when their car
rounded a corner too fast and turned
turtle.
"a baby killed in the arms of its
grandmother near Abba Tuesday
when their auto crashed into another
auto and turned over because 1t was
going So fast the brakes would not
stop it.
"A boy killed Sunday and his father
nearly dead at Stuart because they
drove too fast and the car skidded and
turned over when the brakes were ap-
piled suddenly.
"a doctors wife is lying at deaths
door in Cedar Rapids because her nus
band smashed into another car with
his car on a bridge.
1.-TWO women have broken legs and
a man was knocked senseless. lying
unconscious for hours at Walnut be-
cause he speeded around another car
and crashed into a third car.
This is only the list of one days
news columns. Yesterday in Marshall
county we had six colored people
manned and injured because the driv-
er lost control Of his Ford car on
level road driving too fast. Tomor,
row in Iowa we will have more dead
and wounded from excessive automo-
bile speed. It will ever be thus until
motor cars can be driven mostly IN
der twenty miles an hour"