The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1931-01-29
Autoist Must Pay
For Damages
Motorists Assn. Proposes Fin
ancial Responsibility
Measure

dissatisfied judgments arising out
of motor vehicle accidents are rapid
Iy mounting in numbers and clutter
ing up court records. Thousands
of persons may own or obtain posses
sion of a motor car who are without
financial responsibility and the inno-
cent victims of most of the highway
accidents are left unprotected and
unable to recover financially for the
personal injury or property damage
which they have sustained. Legisla-
tion and law enforcement may well
serve to reduce accidents but they
can hardly be expected to prevent
them entirely and for this reason
there is a general demand developing
today all over the United States and
Canada that laws be formulated look
ing to the responsibility in damages
of all motorists.
Leadership in such matter would
naturally be expected from the or
ganized motoring public and so we
find the American Automobile Asso-
citation hearkening to the demands of
its hundreds of thousands OF men,
bers, appointing a Safety Responsible
lily Committee of nineteen from as
many different cities and making a
complete investigation and study OF
the matter of financial recompense
as related to innocent victims" OF
traffic accidents. AS a result of the
work of this committee we find the
American Automobile Association re-
peatedly going on record in opposi-
ton to compulsory automobile liabi-
lily insurance as advocated in the
United States in recent years. This
opposition is based upon the belief
that compulsory liability insurance is
manifestly unfair in that it penalties
all motorists for the shortcomings OF
the minority and that in practice it
has not proved efficacious as safety
measure but has inflated the cost of
accidents to that element of the mo-
toring public least responsible for
them.
The Legislative Committee of the
"A
however draft Safety Responsibility
Law as the best legislative answer
to the problem and as result of the
progress already made more than
one-third of the motor vehicle owners
in the United States and more than
one-half of those in Canada are now
operating under one or more of the
cardinal principles of this bill.
The Minnesota State Automobile
Association has recently drafted
similar bill which will be presented to
the legislature at it's current session..
1t makes provision for the suspension
of the operators license for all per-
sons found guilty of serious VIOLA
lions of the Motor Vehicle Laws. 1t
provides for the suspension Of the
driving rights and ownership regis
tration of all persons against whom
a final judgment has been legally
rendered and who have failed to sat-
isfy such Judgment; this suspension
to remain in effect not only until such
judgment has been satisfied within
reasonable amounts but also until fin
ancial responsibility has been estab-
Iished for any future damages caused.
By this provision motorist will
realize that he must drive carefully
and avoid accidents lest he lose his
privilege of driving by reason of in
ability to pay judgment obtained
against him. This provision obvious
Iy does not absolutely guarantee the
payment of every final judgment,
but the prospect of permanent ex-
pulsion from the road is such COM
polling alternative that it will newt
ably tend to secure payment of judg-
ments and to eventually reduce I'M
paid judgments to the minimum.
The Committee, which formulated
the Bill, has had constantly in mind
the fact that the streets and the high
ways are public assets; that the auto
mobile is vital factor in business,
social and economic life, and that the
large mass of law-abiding, careful
drivers should be permitted the use
of the streets without subjecting
them to unreasonable burdens, finan-
cial or otherwise.
For this reason, the Safety-Respon-
sibility Bill is frankly designed to
reach the small minority of reckless
and irresponsible motor vehicle oper-
ators to whom are chargeable the
mounting toll of loss of life and in