The Washington herald., 1922-08-27
MOTOR TRUCK HEAD
GOOD INVESTMENT
Says Respect for Rights
OF ''Other Fellow" Pays
High Dividends.

This 10 not a story OF the brother
hood of man but rather of the
equality OF all highway travellers.
The highways are for everyone.
On them no one 10 king. Every
person meets every other person on
the highway-upona q common
gronnd-upon an equality Of driver
shfp. The man in the big Twin S
has no greater privilege upon the
public highway than the man with
the Twin Flivver. and IL the lat
ter wants to pass the big car he
should have the chance II there is
room. Likewise. a big speedy car
ought to have half of the road to
pass the big, heavily-laden motor
truck.
Even IL charity does begin at
home. II should be continued on the
highways and byways. shouldn't IL?
There IL no logical reason why the
automobile or truck should run
down. Courtesy and kill IL.
!. 1t 3s human nature. perhaps. that
he who drives a car naturally blames
the other fellow. we-you and l.
cannot possibly make a mistake.
It's always mo. sir, IL wasn't my
fault. He should have stayed over
on his own side. He bumped into
me-" That's the way you and / ex-
plain most of the accidents. isn't
it. 1t is absolutely true that for
every car we pass we also pass the
buck for the blame.
Whenever we drive. there are over
100000 automobiles and truck
drivers on the road with US We
are all human. but we all have our
equal rights, and we must keep
friendly with the other drivers.
We might just as well sit up and
think the situation over carefully
now. because the number of drivers
is increasing by the million every
year. The roads aren't being
widened fast enough to make II pos
siSle for us to have our former
freedom and room. We must give
ground" q little more all the time
as the traffic increases.
The law of the highway of the flu
because lives are in the balance.
Hundreds of thousands of our chill
dren are being killed every year be-
cause of the selfshness of our
drivers.
We are all good natured at heart.
but the crust over our exterior won't
let US be charitable toward the
other fellow-that is, IL he is in an
automobile or truck. Meet him face
to face in a lobby of a hotel or in
his home and he is a mighty good
fellow. but on the highway-he is
ferent.
Causes of Accidents.
Why should we say Let George
move over and stay on his own side
of the road and accidents won't hap
pen" Let us see what this foolish
stiffness OF our back bones is doing
There are three main causes of acci-
dents. They are:
!. Foolish chances taken.
2. Misjudging road distance or
speed.
,. Mishaps to mechanism.
No. l by far over-shadows all
others in causing accidents.
One thing we passenger car
drivers must remember is this-the
truck has its place on the high
ways. 1t is part of our great COM
mercial system and business would
suffer tremendously without il. You
would go without a good many
things tomorrow if the motor truck
ceased to exist.
The truck driver has his rights
and they should be respected. He
is human and just as likeable a fell
low as there is in the world. and he
is on the job doing his work as
he sees it and, being busy. he is
thf liking about nothing else but get
ting his load delivered. II you or /
were driving in his place, that is
the thing we would be doing. too.
We should always remember that
although the truck may be going
slowly and may be taking up a lot
Of the road, its errand may be much
more important than ours and its
driver may be in just as big a hurry
as we are.
The truck driver should. on the
other hand, remember that the high
ways were not built entirely for
commercial use and that there are
nine times as many passenger cars