Judge — February 9, 1924 — page 29: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

however, would not blame the jagged rocks for his death and intimate that they should not be there; they would refer to the accident as one of suicide. It is to change this unfair attitude on the part of newspaper publishers and the public in general that is one of the mis- sions of the Traffic Planning and Safety Committee of the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce, composed of some of the most broad-minded and able men in the industry. HESE men feel that newspaper head- lines which say, for example, “Three More Deaths Caused by Automobiles To- day” are unfair and misleading, unless it has been definitely proved that the driver of the automobile, or the mechanical condition of the latter, has been directly responsible for the accidents in question. If a pedestrian pays the penalty for his own carelessness in crossing the street, why should the automobile owning public be instantly blamed for it and treated as no better than murderers by the news- paper headlines? It is one of the aims of the committee in question to furnish re- port blanks to the newspapers of all cities above a given size which will enable the editors to fill out the conditions surround- ing each automobile fatality, so that the cause of accidents may be classified and the correct. proportion of those which may be fairly attributed to the auto- mobilist may be obtained. Asan example for the need of some such missionary work, one of the half-dozen automobile accidents reported for the day in a certain newspaper heading was found to have been the case of an aged man who was overcome with heart failure while waiting in the car for his daughter, who had been driving, to conclude some shop- ping errands. The doctor's verdict was that the heart attack would have occurred had the victim been at home instead of seated quietly in the comfortable up- holstery of the sedan, and yet the nev paper added this one accident to the list of automobile fatalities for the day! The careless driver, the incompetent driver and the liquor or drug addict, should never be permitted to sit behind the steering-wheel of a car. Under the head “incompetent. drivers” should be those who, while possibly understanding perfectly the operation of the controlling mechanism, and able to handle it under ordinary conditions, nevertheless “lose their head” and become helpless in time of emergency when presence of mind is most needed. For such drivers, mental, physical and medical examinations similar to those given to airplane pilots during the war, are necessary. As already stated, the careless, incom- petent and unreliable driver represents less than 1 per cent. of all automobile operators in the country. However, in order to weed out that exceedingly dan- gerous less-than-1 per cent., for the sins of which the entire automobile owning pub- lic is made to suffer, some form of exami- nation or personal licensing is necessary. Some States have already adopted such measures, while in others the very number of automobilists makes the issuance of such permits 1 on adequate exami- nations, appear as a tremendous task. Some means must be devised, however, for protecting the careful and conscientious driver from the results of accidents caused by careless pedestrians or incompetent owners of other vehicles, Harotp W. Stauson. tas Stage-struck Maiden (after trying her voice)—Do you think I can ever do any- thing with my voice? Stage Manager—Well, it may come in handy in case of fire. —Pearson’s Weekly. Shopwalker (to kleptomaniac)—Excuse me, madam, wouldn’t you prefer to have those things sent?—London Opinion. 27 Earl Roberts, tenor-banjo artist with the famous Westphal Orchestra, Columbia record art- ists, uses and endorses the New Gibson Mastertone Banjo. 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