ARIZONA CITIES ENTER SAFETY CAMPAIGN

Will Your Driving MAKE OUR STREETS DANGEROUS

A chain is as strong as its weakest link and a city's streets are as safe as the most reckless driver who uses them. Most motorists are careful and lawabiding. A careless few most of them are “accident repeaters” are responsible for the great majority of the accidents. The accidents they cause involve innocent pedestrians and innocent other motorists as well. Accidents caused by the careless few offset the conscientious efforts of the careful majority. Neither law makers, law enforcement officials, nor courts can make a city's streets safe. They help, of course, but safe driving is an individual responsibility, placed on the shoulders of each person who operates a motor vehicle. Each individual must be responsible not only for his own safety but for the safety of all others who use the highways. It is a matter of civic pride that your city be known as a city of safe streets. Will your driving mar an otherwise good record?

Good Roads Will Pay Dividends To Owners

Estimating a saving of 2 cents a mile traveled on a surfaced road as compared with the cost of travel on a dirt road, each motor vehicle owner who travels 10,000 miles a year on improved roads saves $200, according to W. R. Smith, president of the American Road Builders association. The saving of 2 cents a mile has been conservatively estimated. “A dirt road that has 1000 vehicles a day traffic is losing $7,300 a year to the public on every mile, due to increased operating costs. This loss would pay the interest and sinking fund on money to build the finest kind of road.

A total of 357 American cities were entered in the National Traffic Safety contest when the list closed February 15, the National Safety council has announced. Four Arizona cities are in the race for safety honors namely, Phoenix, Williams, Florence and Chandler. Ten of the thirteen cities having more than 500,000 population were enrolled, New York City, Milwaukee and Buffalo being the only holdouts in that group. An even greater percentage in the next population group was listed. Out of a possible 24 cities having a population of between 250,000 and 500,000 persons, 21 were entered. Two-thirds of the cities of more than 100,000 but less than 250,000 population were enrolled. The complete list shows excellent representations from each of the smaller population groups.

Strenuous promotion work on the part of the American Legion and Kiwanis International to get their local units behind the drive in various parts of the country resulted in a flood of last minute entries.

Massachusetts was far out in the lead in the number of cities entered. New Jersey was a poor second, although considerably ahead of Michigan, Ohio, California, Texas, Illinois and Arkansas, the runnersup. Less than a dozen states, and those mostly in the sparsely settled areas in the West, failed to be represented entirely.

The response on the part of American cities to this contest, the first of its kind ever attempted, has been a surprise to National Safety Council officials. There has been no “high pressure” on the part of the council itself to induce cities to join. “The voluntary response of more than 350 municipalities indicates a deep and widespread interest throughout the country in doing something about the traffic accident problem,” said W. H. Cameron, managing director of the council. “Obviously these cities are eager to grasp a concrete activity, they want to do something definite instead of holding sporadic and mostly ineffective campaigns.

More thaan 50 per cent of all the cities entered have carried on no known safety activity in the past. They may have realized the problem existed but have made little or no attempt to do anything about it. “This contest, through the accident prevention activities it requires of every city entered, will directly affect at least 25 per cent of the nation's population. The campaign holds the promise of getting at the individual driver more effectively than anything ever before attempted.” The contest, which is to run throughout the year, calls for definite activities in every city entered. Each city must report its traffic accidents regularly, carry on an educational program, strengthen its traffic engineering and law enforcement machinery, and organize for a continuous accident prevention effort.

Cities will be graded largely on the improvement made in their motor vehicle fatality rates, but all the above factors will be scored. Trophies will be awarded to the winning city in each population group, and to the state making the best aggregate showing, soon after the first of next year.

High Mark Set By Western States In Road Construction

Although 1931 may not have made any high records in stocks and bonds, it did establish a new high mark for funds expended in road building, according to a summary by Western Highways Builder.

Many states attained a new peak in road construction, and while prophecy is uncertain at best, it is indicated in commitments already made for 1932 that this year will equal 1931 and probably surpass it in volume.

State highway department budgets of the 11 western states for 1932 total more than $113,000,000. This huge sum, however, does not represent the full amount that will be spent on the various highway systems, as in addition there are federal funds and districts, counties, and municipalities that will do their share of building, which it is estimated will equal the sums expended by the states.