EDITORIAL

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

Published in the Interest of Good Roads by the ARIZONA HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT

ARIZONA STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION

C. E. ADDAMS, Chairman, Phoenix

JOHN E. HART, Vice-Chairman, Douglas

JACOB BARTH, Commissioner, St. Johns

MONTE MANSFIELD, Commissioner, Tucson

SAMUEL R. TRENGOVE, Commissioner, Prescott

GEO. W. COMPARET, Secretary, Phoenix

GENERAL OFFICE

T. S. O'CONNELL, State Highway Engineer

C. C. SMALL Deputy State Engineer

E. M. WHITWORTH Vehicle Superintendent

R. A. HOFFMAN Bridge Engineer

E. V. MILLER Engineer of Plans

J. W. POWERS Engineer of Materials

A. H. LIND Equipment Superintendent

J. S. MILLS Engineer of Estimates

H. C. HATCHER Statistical Engineer

W. H. MURRAY Superintendent of Stores

W. C. JOYNER Purchasing Agent

M. C. HANKINS Chief Accountant

JAMES M. HALL Patrol Superintendent

FIELD ENGINEERS

R. C. PERKINS District Engineer District No. 3

GEORGE B. SHAFFER District Engineer District No. 1

F. N. GRANT District Engineer District No. 2

W. R. HUTCHINS District Engineer District No. 4

PERCY JONES Chief Locating Engineer

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Address All Communications to Editor ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

Arizona Highway Department

Phoenix, Arizona

JOBS IN HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

Arizona is differently situated in this time of depression than are the majority of the states of the Union. It is largely a producer of raw materials in the form of copper, cotton, cattle and wool. These industries are amongst the hardest hit in the nation and there is no way to revive them until the business conditions of the nation first improve. We are help-less to help ourselves in the emergency, there is noth-ing else to which we can turn our unemployed to doing while the prices on these products of our hills and soil are below production costs.

The paramount need of locating jobs for our unemployed is greater now than at any time of the depression. We have no great enterprises that can take advantage of the cheap material and labor market to construct works that will serve them with the revival of business. Our people can do their utmost along the lines of charity to keep our unemployed from going hungry, but that will not serve the purpose. The people of Arizona have been and still wish to continue workers. They do not want the demoralizing influence of having to accept charity, they ask for a chance to work.

The biggest opportunity to put the greatest number of the unemployed to work in this state is in building highways, and building of highways is one of the most constructive works that could be undertaken at this time for the future prosperity of the state.

Again this state is different from the majority of states in the Union. It is impossible for this sparsely settled state to finance the huge highway program that would be needed to place these men to wor and to give this state the class of highways it shoul have. Over sixty per cent of Arizona is federall controlled lands. There are vast stretches of India reservations, forest lands, national parks and publi lands that belong to the national government, bu which this state must build highways around on through to give adequate transportation both to state and inter-state traffic. There is no state in the Union where the federal government could spend a few millions of dollars in highway construction to better advantage than in the State of Arizona.

The Arizona Highway Department is prepared to do this work. Surveys, plans and specifications have been prepared ready to submit to bid on millions of dollars' worth of highway improvements in the state. Our national representatives have been urged to ask congress for $10,000,000 to be spent on Arizona highways and this department is ready to carry on the work. Governors of other states in urging the construction of highways to relieve unemployment have stated their surveys show that 75 per cent of the money spent in highway construction goes to labor in the building, the furnishing of materials, etc.

The highway department is ready to meet the emergency that confronts Arizona, provided funds can be made available to do the work. Our unemployed can be put to work building for the future development and prosperity of the state if the federal government will advance the funds to undertake it.

WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF ACCIDENTS

Since man started to travel, there have been traffic accidents. It is to be presumed that in the stone age they fell over cliffs or were drowned fording streams, but what concerns us today is the fact that as we have expended billions of dollars for the improvement of highways, the manufacturers of motor vehicles have added all the devices that science has been able to invent to make our machines safer and lessen the dangers of accident, still the accident toll in life, limb and property mounts higher and higher each year.

It is evident the problem needs to be attacked from a different angle. The National Safety Council has been making a nation-wide study of accidents for a number of years. The mass of statistics it has gathered is making it more apparent each year that the outstanding factor in auto accidents is the indiscriminate issuing of operators' licenses. This is shown in the figures that are piling up on "repeaters," persons who have more than one accident. It is a known fact that a large percentage of persons who have motor crashes seem to be veritable glute tons for punishment in this matter of accidents.

A comparatively recent study of a group of commercial fleet operators reveals the fact that about one-third of some 1,200 operators had no accidents whatever. Another third had two accidents each and the remaining third of the group each had from three to ten accidents. If these findings on repeat-ers represent a fair cross-section of the national automobile accident experience it certainly is high time that the matter be given the attention is deserves and some method devised to take them off the highways.