The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-13
Safety First On
 Fifty-Fifty Basis
By PERCY CHAMBERLAIN
.Four people killed at grade cross-

-Four people killed at grade cross- ing"
 It happened recently at Eugene, Oregon. One of the big Portland Los Angeles automobile stages was struck by @ Southern Pacific train. There is law in Oregon requiring drivers of automobile stages to come at full stop before crossing a rail- way track. This driver did not obey the law. Four were killed, others injured and the driver arrested.
 The accident brought forth much public censure of this particular driv- CT. Newspapers in the northwest justly deplored his carelessness. Co., ing further, one editorial remarked:
 Has America reared for herself a new car of Juggernaut? Has the nation, like Frankenstein, devised a terrible monster of destruction that demands it's daily toll of life?"
 Such accidents, of themselves, are most deplorable. Nothing will bring back the. victims to their loved ones. Let them not die in vain. Let us so intelligently consider cause and ef- feet that steps can be taken to pre- vent them. Punish the careless driv- CT. Punish him hard. But while he serves his sentence the grass grows on the graves of those who have died.
 An account of the accident states that the train. rushing across the highway, could not stop in time. Just why should the train rush across the highway? If the train had stopped there would have been no accident in spite of the drivers carelessness.
 This writer once counted the num- Der of people on long trans-contf- mental train. There were 190 people linen, women and children.
 On the Sunday before last Labor Day a count was made of the auto mobiles using the highway south from Los Angeles. On that day 15,400 cars passed through Santa Anna, Cal, headed south. Counting four people to the car 71,600 people used the highway. And 1t was just one highway.
 Wherever this highway crossed the railway tracks there were warning signs. "Cross at your perir' said these signs.
 Hurtling around a curve comes a locomotive. There is no slackening of speed. Back of the locomotive are from two to fifteen coaches. From 20 to 200 people are being trans ported from one place to another.
 Get out of our way" say these hundreds to the thousandsl
 After time the train stops-per- haps with a hot box A flagman Is train whcih may be following. Be- cause of the delay 1t arrives late at it's destination. It is not unusual for trains to be late.
 Why not let them be late because of Safety First" When transporta- tiOn which runs on steel rails crosses transportation which runs on Why not Safety First"-on . 50-50 basis?
 It would be neither necessary nor sensible for a stop to be made at every country lane and crossroad. Eut few accidents happen there. Where the railroads cross the trans state and trans-continental highways it Is both necessary and sensible that both kinds of transportation respect and protect the other.
 The engineer, speeding to make up time, smashes into. the automobile stage at 60 miles an hour. He is per- fectly within his right. Even If scores of his own passengers are killed, no blame attaches to him.
 Instead. it IS suggested that the may have to be sup pressed!
 Let not the victims of these acci- dents die In vain!
 Transportation is-transportation We each have the right to travel where we please, in whatever way we please and for whatever purpose we so long as we obey the law. And that law should protect all of us in these rights-whether we travel by railway or automobile.
 Copyright 1924, by Percy Cham berlain.)