Milford chronicle., 1922-08-25
MOTORS AND MANNERS
fErom Philadelphia Ledger

(F'rOm Philadelphia Ledger)
A Broad street traffic policeman
discoursing upon the troubles that &C
cumulate at his post, remarked tha
drivers of automobiles from othel
States have better manners and seen
more respectful of the laws and ordi
nances than those who display Penn
sylvania or New Jersey tags.
This doesn't prove that there is any
essential difference between the tour
ist and the native.
It is a safe guess that the motorist
from a far place drives conservative
" and is obviously sensitive to the
requirements of traffic laws simply
because of the instructive caution OF
the stranger amid strange surround
ings.
It might be said in comment on this
general topic that traffic policemen
are in turn more polite to the visitor
than they are to the native driver or
to the driver from nearby parts. That
of course, is as it should be. In the
course sof time traffic policemen will
be polite to everybody. That will be
after everybody learns how to be po-
lite to traffic policemen.
One of those reforms that originate
so plentifully in the West touches IN
timately the relationship between the
motoring public and the public author
tiles. Hitherto in most Eastern COM
munities the police have had an air
of tolerating the motor and the per-
sons who ride in it. West of the Mis-
sissippi, however, the increase of mo-
tor tourists has given the average po-
licernan and the average Mayor pause.
A second thought made it clear that
the people who travel in motorcars
are quite like other people.
So in the West a motor driver may
90 from. one State to another and
move in and out of cities without once
feeling, as he often feels in the East,
that he is constantly under the eye OF
an unfriendly law. In many mid-Wes-
tern cities the tourist with a foreign"
license plate will be stopped by the
first traffic man he meets, who passes
him a little proclamation Of welcome
from the Mayor and a miniature copy
of the States road laws. He will be
cheerfully addressed with an express
sion of the community's desire that he
make himself at home and have
good time, and call again.
It. is a regrettable fact, but a fact
nevertheless, that such attention as
the average Eastern policeman gives
to motorists is usually tinged with re-
sentiment inspired by the minority OF
speeders and gasoline idiots. The ma
jority of drivers, being law-abiding
and decent-mannered, seldom bring
themselves to the attention of the au-
thorities and, so far as the police go,
they don't exist. Or, rather, they
didn't exist.
Lately the traffic men have been
taking a more cheerful view Of the
automobile. They have an obvious de-
sire to instruct rather than to bawl.
out motorists who fall unconscious
ly into small infractions Of the law.
The habit of official discrimination
against motor drivers is disappearing.
Life awheel will be pleasanter when
traffic men, whose trials are great,
can at least be as pleasant and help
full to the natives as they are to the
visitors from far away. For the pres
ent the police regard the native as one
of the family and, therefore, without
special right to friendly consideration.
They reserve their best manners for
the stranger within the gates. And
who can blam them for that?