Cavalier County farmers press. (Langdon, N.D.) 1920-1921, 1921-08-04
SPEED CAUSE OF
ROAD ACCIDENTS
Auto Tourist Who Has Driven
More Than $4,000 Miles Gives
Result of Observations.
NO Two GOOD ROADS ALIKE
Don't Take Strange Road at More
Than 20 Miles an Hour His Ad-
vice-car Doesn't Drive Twice
Alike in Any Roadway.

sHtAtHks9s LA9.EEA mon " .Gat.-r MEEAkaAH4ss
Little Falls, IN. Y.-Archie Baker
claims to be Al confirmed automobile
tourist of long and varied experience.
He says he has driven upward Of 50s-
600 miles in his 1916 seven-passenger
six; and the ear lookedtit when Archie
and his family pulled u beside the
road just west of Small Gulf, between
Little Falls and Herkimer, to camp
in one of the most noted of Mohawk
valley tourist parking places.
Baker and his wife and a twelve
year-old son and ~ten-year-old daughter
said that touring agrees with them.
They gave the impression of having
an independent income.
MY experience is that a lot of
tourists don't know very much, and
don't stop to learn anything, either"
said MIR. Baker. The result is, they
have aslot of hard knocks. When we
were coming into New York state,
about $50 miles from here, We turned
off down a side road to camp; by Lake
Erie. There was an outfit down by
the lake which claimed they had had
a lot of hard luck. They dished a
wheel; they tore up a tire; they lost
a tent off the back end of the load;
they slept cold nights, and they were
just about ready to quit. But,
shucks! they won't quit. Nobody
ever does quit once the family have
gone to touring right-the way it
can be done. Their dished wheel in
terested me. The man claimed he
didn't drive fast, but he skidded,
caught the weight of the car on the,
right rear wheel, and smashed it all
a-blim.
This was on a strange road, out in
Indiana, he said, and it sure did look
all right. But it smashed him, and
it was' pure luck that he didn't roll
over / asked him about the kind of
road. and he couldn't tell me; said
it was pretty muddy, but had gravel
on it too.
There you arel He smashed up
and was taught a lesson, and didn't
know what the lesson was. The fact
Is there are more than 200 different
kinds of good roads in the United
States. I've been on most kinds. I'll
recite a few of them-mountain
contract roads. stone waterbound,
concrete roads, oil waste roads,
gravel, sand and clay, broken down,
stone roads, cut and fill crushed
stone surface, cinder, shell, bank
gravel, beach gravel, desert two
crackers, and so on.
ls mo Two Good Roads Alike
mo two good roads are alike.
Good and careful a driver as / am,
I darn near rolled over out west of
Salt Lake City last summer, skid
ding in the dust-dry, fluffy dust.
Why. if I'd been driving 20 miles
instead Of careful 70 miles an hour,
we'd rolled end over applicant, and
it was a good road, If you knew how
to drive it. Yes, sir. There is not
a road in all this United States, not
the best, widest, finest, smoothest
road, that isn't treacherous fla mans
not used to it. I doE,tt mean wild
eyed hummers, but just common folks
like me.
ST you don't believe it, you study
the road accidents you come upon as
you ride across the country. Halt
the skidding is done where the road
type changes, where a man leaves
concrete and hits oil surface or where
he leaves the w%aterbound stone for
hard pan.
car doesn't drive twice alike on
n roadway from New York to San
\ francisco. I know, because I've made
the trip. Where do tourists coming
east bang up with trouble? It's when
they come off bad roads into good
roads. You take the western part of
New York state, and people leaving
the good roads of Ohio after crossing
the little neck Of Ohio don't have half
the trouble that people coming east
have when they hit the fancy New
York brand of roadways.
JOB for Nearest Garage Man.
Now it's the same way with Cali
fornia. You take a man who's run out
or Nevada or eastern California desert
roadssover the Sierra divide into the
paved ways of California, he feels re.
Iieved. He's on good roads at last
He's been careful for 1000 miles. He
wants to step N 'er. He does. He
hits a sharp turn, and bingo! The
nigh wheels drop into the sand, and
there's d big job for the garage III the
nearest town.
"Pprticularly speaking, let me sas