Protecting Our Highways by Licensing Our Drivers

PROTECTING Our HIGHWAYS by LICENSING our DRIVERS By J. STANNARD BAKER, ASSISTANT TRAFFIC ENGINEER, NATIONAL SAFETY COUNCIL

In 1931 American factories turned out nearly two and one-half million shiny new automobiles. This was, to the regret of the American automobile industry, far from being the biggest production on record, but unquestionably the individual machines turned out were the best ever built. Every year the engineers in our automobile plants have devised mechanical improvements. The advance has been so rapid that the model of even ten years ago is quite obsolete. The owner of today has a car that eclipses all predecessors in beauty, comfort, speed, and safety; and the vehicle of ten years ago has practically disappeared from the highway.

The new cars have four-wheel brakes, shatterproof glass, simplified gear shifts, mirrors, sun shades, and improved headlights. Most important of all, they have such refined design, such carefully selected materials, and such thorough inspection that, given reasonable care, they almost never cause an accident by breaking down in service. But these cars are so powerful that unless the driver regulates them intelligently they can speed him into danger literally before he can sense it, and they go so fast that even minor mishaps may result in frightful wrecks!

The highways, too, are better now than ever before. Our civil engineers have kept pace with their fellow technicians, the motor vehicle designers, and are now building thousands of miles of pavement that make most of the roads over which we trudged in 1922 seem quite antique. The new roads are safer. Ruts are practically a thing of the past. Sharp curves and steep grades are being eliminated. Center lines and traffic control have been generously applied. Grade crossings are disappearing one by one. Banked curves have become common; and safety fencing, scientifically designed, is the order of the day. Yet such highways permit, you might almost say invite, the veloci ties at which accidents are almost sure to be serious. They lure drivers to speeds at which a momentary lapse of attention, an instant's delay in reaction, a slight error in judgment, may well mean another motor vehicle fatality.

With roads safer and cars safer, but each contributing to higher possible speeds and thus subtly demanding more intelligence, skill, and judgment back of the feet that rest on brakes and accelerators, let us see what improvements there have been during the last decade among drivers.

Are drivers better trained than they were? No, except among chauffeurs, most drivers still learn what they know of motor vehicle operation and safety from brothers, fathers, friends, or auto-mobile salesmen who often themselves are woefully incompetent in handling cars safely and, still more frequently, have little idea how to teach another what little they do know.

Are drivers more courteous, atten-tive, quick, careful, or scientific than they were? There is nothing to indi-cate that they are.

Do drivers know more about the ve-hicles they drive? No one will contend that they do, for improvements in the vehicle and dependence upon the serv-ice man have increased so much that few of us can make even simple ad-justments, and hardly anyone even tries to grease and oil his car himself.

Are drivers more experienced? Prob-ably so, because most of them have driven more . . . Are drivers more care-fully selected? Only in states having drivers' license laws with examinations. Are drivers better disciplined? Only where license laws are enforced or high-way patrolling is methodically carried out.

It would seem, therefore, that while we have improved roads and improved cars we still have pretty much the same old bunch of drivers, except in states where licensing has been instituted. But this is a most important exception, es-pecially in its influence on accidents.

Let us look at some facts in this connection. Careful studies made by the National Safety Council show that states with drivers' license laws requiring an examination and administered by a strong central authority, have had greater success in preventing motor vehicle fatalities than have states without such laws. This study demonstrated that automobile deaths in the license law states, following the passage ofsuch laws, were 31 per cent lower than they would have been if their accidents had increased at the same rate as in the non-license states.

The period studied was from 1916 to 1931. The benefits of such a law seem to be cumulative, for at the end of 1926 the improvement was only 20 per cent, at the end of 1929 it was 29 per cent and for 1931 it was 31 per cent. Motor vehicle deaths in the entire country increased 7.3 per cent from 1929 to 1931. In twelve license law states, however, the increase amounted to only 6.5 per cent. This showing is especially creditable because heavily urban states, during 1931, have shown a much greater increase in gasoline consumption than the rural states, and not all of the license law states are in the urban classification.

In two quite obvious ways these licensing laws lead toward decreases in accidents:

But there are other ways that licensing operators reduces accidents. Careful study of the operation of motor vehicle departments in states which have been licensing drivers for some years shows that the safety effects of these laws are much more far-reaching in the following additional ways:

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS FEBRUARY, 1933

The new applicants, who are mostly young people, take the examination and get the license when they are not so sure of their own driving; consequently, the license seems important to them, and they are impressed with the sincerity of the state in its attempt to promote safety much more than they would be at any other time in their careers.

The possibility of losing a license is a very real factor in influencing driving habits of most of the public, especially if suspensions and revocations are almost invariably connected with fatal or serious personal injury accidents.

Since the drivers' license provides positive identification, it is almost impossible for one to give a fictitious name and address in case of an accident to avoid settling for damages.

Licensing laws which do not accomplish these results cannot be expected to reduce accidents. Where licenses are given out without examination, and with little or no fee, they are not valued highly by the recipient. Likewise, if only a handful of suspensions and revocations are imposed annually, and those for only such flagrant violations -as driving while intoxicated, drivers will not be appreciably more careful and the accidents will not be appreciably lessened.

Good licensing thus stands out as one important means of reaching the driver effectively, educating, disciplining and encouraging him. There are other approaches to the driver too; such as general publicity, which often fails, however, to reach those who need it; and better training, which has been so far neglected.

Some day we may have, possibly in our high schools, facilities for training automobile drivers comparable to those now available for manual training, physical education, music, and other things which are of less practical importance to many of our young people than good coaching in the operation of a motor vehicle would be.

At least, the time is definitely past when our roads can be used by anyone without regard for others who may be traveling upon them. There are now only 613 feet of highway (outside of cities) per car, and of this only 143 feet are surfaced. Obviously, we have a situation in which every car must share the highways with thousands of others. Setting up rules for driving is recognized as indispensable in such con-gestion. It is equally important to establish standards which must be met by the cars and the drivers, to give some measure of assurance that other drivers will follow rules on which we depend for our own safety.

Considering the cost of accidents, preventing them by license laws is remark-ably cheap. For every driver in Amer-ica (assuming 5 drivers for every 4 cars), the annual cost of motor vehicle accidents per driver is about as follows, based upon one of the more con-servative estimates:

A first-class license law may be ad-ministered for the following fees:

This will cover the giving of an excellent examination, record keeping, hear-ings, etc. License laws are being administered effectively in some states for much less than this.

Now, if in ten years or so, driver control through licensing should reduce accidents by 20 per cent, as experience quoted above shows it may well be expected to do, we have an annual in-vestment of 50c or less per driver, resulting in a saving of 20 per cent of $39.00 or about $8.00 per year per driver.

Of course, these results cannot be obtained if the license is issued without examination and with little or no fee, and if only a handful of suspensions and revocations are imposed each year for the more serious offenses. Passing out licenses will not make people cautious any more than waving a flag will make them patriotic. A license must be striven for, must be paid for, must be valued, if it is to have any influence on its owner's driving. The license itself is no magic amulet that will ward off accidents; it is merely an evidence that the privilege of using highways has been granted. It is merely a piece of machinery by which the state controls those who drive, and that piece of machinery must be run well to produce results. This has been fully demonstrated in states with long experience in licensing drivers.

Massachusetts is a good example of a state with effective licensing. A license there costs $2.00 a year, which covers the most of administration plus some revenue similar to that collected forthe registration of motor vehicles. The examinations given have at times rejected as high as 25 per cent of the applicants on first trial, though only 3 per cent or less are ultimately refused permission to drive. Very sig-nificant, however, is the fact that sus-pensions and revocations have gradually been increased in number from year to year, until now they exceed annually the total number of fatal and personal injury accidents. In other words, for every serious accident in Massachusetts there is now a suspension or revocation, though this is not always in connec-tion with the accident. As would be expected, these activities have been re-flected in the fatality rate of that state.

In 1931 our federal government, states, and cities spent approximately $2,200,000,000 on streets and highways. That was nearly $70.00 per driver, and more than the vehicles driven by many of these drivers were worth. Then why shouldn't our states specify how these roads should be used and by whom? If we spend $70.00 a year for every driver, to improve the roads upon which he travels, is it not reasonable to ask the driver to spend half a dollar or so per year to help raise the standards of road users? This does not seem unreasonable, when vehicles are now so highly developed that further perfections in them could prevent only 5 or 10 per cent of the accidents, when highways are so well built and maintained that all possible reasonable improvements in them could prevent less than 25 per cent of the accidents, and when the drivers themselves are clearly shown by statistics to be in a position to prevent 80 to 90 per cents of the accidents.

(Continued from Page 8) Congress to continue the Federal Aid policy by appropriating during the pres-ent emergency a sum equal to that ap-propriated last year, and in any event not less than the revenues from Federal taxes on gasoline and tires."

HIGHWAY SYSTEM FACES STAGNATION

The emergency general sales tax was recommended to the states as a means of evenly spreading the costs of unemployment relief.

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ARIZONA HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT

CHART SHOWING PERCENTAGE OF THE NET GASOLINE TAX COLLECTED BY EACH COUNTY ALSO PORTION TO STATE AND COUNTIES, FROM JULY 1, 1927 to JUNE 10m 1932 PERCENTAGE OF NET GASOLINE TAX COLLECTED BY EACH COUNTY

PORTION TO STATE AND COUNTIES

Portion of Gasoline Tax to State Highway Department 65.16% Amount $3,275,799.00

TOTAL $ 12,700,412.26

TOTAL $ 2,700,412 26

ARIZONA HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT

CHART SHOWING PERCENTAGE OF VARIOUS ITEMS THAT MAKE UP CONSTRUCTION EXPENDITURES. JULY 1st 1930 to JULY 1st 1932.

Payments To Contractors 78 32%

State Forces 6.31%

Engineering Construction 9.10%

An average of 79 62% Federal Aid was received on the total sum of the above rems, an amount of $ 7,114,596 95 Federal Aid