Newark post., 1920-07-14
BEWARE OF
MOTOR MADNESS"
Reckless Driving and Joy Rid
ing Exact Appalling
Toll of Life

The summer season of motor
tragedies has opened in record
breaking fashion. In New York
City, which largely sets the pace
for the whole country, the num-
ber of tragedies on the road show
an increase over last year of more
than 26 per cent. In the month of
June, 1919, ffty-seven persons
were killed by motor vehicles on
the streets of that city. That was
an appalling and most discredit-
able record. But this year, in the
first twenty-five days of the month,
no fewer than seventy-two lives
were thus lost. At that rate we
hesitate for sheer horror to esti-
mate how many such tragedies oc-
cur in the whole United States
durig the year.
A writer in British automo
bile journal has recently described
the United States as motor mad"
and it is impossible to escape
pleading guilty to the indictment,
though not perhaps in the way in
which he meant it. His reference
was to the vast number of cars in
use, and indeed in that circum-
stance there are not lacking indi-
cations of insanity. There is far
more truth than poetry in the tales
Of families mortgaging their homes
in order to buy cars. Many who
never felt themselves pecuniarily
able to keep horses and carriages
now drive about in cars. Partly
because of a desire to keep up
with the neighbors" and partly be-
cause of the strong fascination
that there is in motoring, they run
themselves into debt for the sake
of what is really luxury. This is
no doubt serious evil.
But the motor madness which
we have in mind is far worse. We
mean the madness of reckless
driving, to which we venture to
say 80 per cent of the accidents
are due. This is of two kinds, the
merely foolish and the wantonly
criminal. Of the former a striking
example was exhibited in New
York the other day, when a family
went out driving in a high-power-
ed car, and one of the children, a
girl of fifteen, entirely inexpert,
was permitted to sit at the wheel
and drive. The natural result was
the demolition of the car, the kill
ing of the girl driver, and the seri-
Gus, if not fatal, injuring of two
other members of the party. The
incredible folly of such a perform
ance is patent to all after the
event. But it is repeated many
times every day, and is response
BILE for many tragedies of the road.
On the same day, in the same
city, hilarious gang of "joy-
riders" in a big, swift, heavy car
ran into a smaller car and killed
its two occupants, and then hast
ened away with number-plate con-
cealed or removed to avoid detec-
tion. Ingenuity would be taxed to
devise an excuse for such conduct
that would not leave the perpetra-
tors under the imputation of wan
ton and even intentional criminal
ity, amply deserving the extreme
penalty of the law. And there is
no error in saying that a large
proportion of the fatalities report
ed in the daily news can be iattri-
buted to such conduct, or conduct
differing from that in degree only
and not in kind.
Fools and criminals we shall
doubtless always have with US.
But that is reason why their
folly and their crime should en-
JOY immunity. In other matters of
far less importance we are strict
and severe. But there seems to
be a strange laxity and indiffer-
ence toward4these outrages on the
public highway. Two or three
deaths a day from bubonic plague
would throw city into panic,
and emergency action Of a string
ent kind would be take. But that
number of automobile butchers is
passed over as a negligible trife,
or as a matter of course. There is
a motor madness of folly and
crime in the perpetration of the
tragedies. There seems also to be
a motor madness of indifference if
not of actual condonation of do
ings which should rouse govern
ment and public to swift, stern
action. 1t is monstrous that the