Evening star., 1935-01-08
Headway Impossible Against Traffic
Death Rate Till Lawless Driving Ceases

There should be coday-in fact,
should have been 10 years ago-plans
for the widening of streets, the open
ing Of new thoroughfares and the
study of the approaches to the city for
Is years hence, Is years hence and so
years hence. Instead of such plan
ming we find condition where when
some accident takes place either an
other traffic light is stuck up or a few
more signs nailed to our trees or
electric light or telephone poles, or
another traffic regulation written. And
the effect is to pile confusion upon
confusion. Today the traffic signs are
beginning to rival the leaves Of the
trees in numbers.
have always believed in being
specific. If the Police Department
and the Traffic Department have kept
the records they should keep, they
know who are causing the killings.
They know the types and conditions
Of the cars, the light trucks and the
taxicabs. They know the ages, sex,
color and other facts concerning the
drivers. Without all such facts care
fully gathered, the average citizen
must depend upon his own observation,
and 40 years of work have shown me
that careful observation is most of
the time better than the poorly Or
ganized records kept by many organi-
cations.
Nearly Is years of continuous driv-
ing on the streets of the District,
many thousands of miles per year,
in all conditions of traffic and wealth
er, to which should be added a rather
careful reading of traffic accidents,
as recorded in the daily papers, in
dicates to me clearly that the great
est traffic violators are the taxicab
drivers. It would seem to me that
IS per cent of all the traffic violations
have observed are caused by the
said taxi drivers.
For their numbers, the drivers of
light trucks and delivery wagons are
equally guilty, and one should not
overlook the drivers Of mail wagons.
These classes Of drivers, especially
the light truck and delivery drivers
and the taxi drivers, invariably start
on red light instead of waiting for
the green; they cut around all other
drivers at stop lights and everywhere
else; they hurl themselves into q
trafflc line to scare the civilian driver
out of his place; they drive at high
speed when they have q passenger
and loiter at low speed when they
have none. To get passengers they
stop everywhere and anywhere sud-
denly and without warning; they
whirl in the streets, take corners at
high speed and in every way endanger
traffic. just how many accidents they
are involved in would not attempt
to say. They are generally expert
drivers, but their influence on the less
expert driver who, exhausted, tries
to get a decent break while driving
among them is the cause of probably
as many accidents, almost, as the taxi
drivers are involved in themselves.
All this could be stopped if q con-
centrated drive were made by the
Police and Traffic Bureaus at first one
street intersection after another and
with q proper campaign of publicity.
Now I have every sympathy with
the taxi driver, who must earn a
living, just as have every sympathy
with the policeman who must en-
force the law, yet good sense would
teach that taxi driver that proper
obedience to the law would save him
time and money, because every ac-
cident, however slight, costs the taxi
man time and perhaps injury to his
car, both Of which are money out of
his pocket.
have remarked that the taxi driver
Is an expert driver. made that re-
mark to an insurance man of this
city who drives perhaps q couple of
thousand miles month in his busi-
ness and who has been in the insur-
ance business for thirty years or more
in this city, and bis reply to me was: