Evening star., 1919-03-11
Two Main Reasons Why
Street Accidents Occur

To the Editor of The Star.
/ have been interested in your CAM
paign against reckless driving and its
bile accidents, and. although some
what prejudiced, being an automobile
list myself, / will candidly state that
Washington is about the worst city
for the pedestrian that / know of, and
only little better for the auto driver
To my mind the greatest source of
trouble between cars is the absolute
lack of knowledge as to who has the
right of way. resulting in all sorts of
chances being taken. Washington's
north, south, east and west rule is
archaic and can only result in disas-
ter. The average human being has
about as much idea of the points of
the compass as an oyster. If a city
is laid out in rectangies and he has
lived there some time he will no doubt
become educated after many close
calls, but complicate him with diago-
nal avenues. radiating outward from
centers and he is a hopeless case.
The rule used in most places Except
for certain districts controlled direct
ly by traffic officers) is that the man
approaching you on your right has
the right of way, simple, clear and
precise. At street Intersections you
have one thing to. do--watch your
right You do not have to calculate
speeds of cars approaching you from
opposite directions; your attention is
not distracted trying te look two
ways at the same time, and IL makes
no difference at what angle the
streets intersect. Also it tends to re-
duce speeding, for it makes every
driver responsible at every corner.
Now If he is on the right of way line,
and knows it. he disregards the inter-
sections until he meets some one else
doing the same thing, but mistaken
in the fact that he has the right of
way.
You have mentioned in your col
umns about every cause for accidents
To pedestrians except one---lack of
proper use of the horn. On the
straight away streets, where. you can
see both ways. it is up to the pedes-
trian at least to look, but as you
start to cross there steals around the
corner a machine. 1t is the proper
turn; he is correct, only you did not
notice that he was there, being en-
gagged in looking up and down the
street you were about to cross
touch of the horn and IL would have
been all right; no necessity of blast
ing you off your feet: just a polite
note to the effect that he is there and
intends to turn up that street. There
are many ether places where the
proper use of the horn would save
not only accidents. but hard feelings.
The autoist can nearly, always tell
whether he has been seen or not; IL
he is d polite, considerate man he will
slow up and say TO himself II won't
blow, as il would scare him; my car
is under perfect control" So he just
slides up behind you and is on top of
you. No danger, of course not; but
you--you don't know that that partic-
uiar dog won't bite. and the jump and
scare, particularly in the case of
women, Is much greater than Ii a po-
lite warning note of the horn were
given when stili some distance away.
l have two horns-a big one to let
the man around the bend on the coun-
try hill road know that | am coming
around the turn. polite little buzzer
for city use. OF course, II in tight
place. pinched in. or making dart to
avoid collision. and the pedestrian
simply has to jump the big horn will
do it, but it should be used only in
emergencies. ] have driven for many
years in many places. but have never
gotten over the desire to hand one to
the man that turns big horn loose
or Inc, and probably would have done
so before now only under the circum-
stances u is usually hard to get your
hands on him from the street
AAACQLM RICHARpR