Motor Law Enforcement Method Fails to Reduce Accident List

The New York Times
November 26, 1922

Criticises System Which Emphasizes Arrests at Expense of Educating Operators in Traffic Responsibility—Intoxicated Drivers Increasing.

Motor vehicle regulation, as at present enforced in the United States, has evidently failed as a means of reducing accidents and making city streets and open highways safer for those who use them. Despite the fact that statistics have often been compiled showing that in some localities automobile accidents indicate a falling percentage in proportion to the number of cars in use and population, from previous years, a study of the motorcar fatalities, reaching the appalling total of 10,168 for 1921, as recently compiled by the Department of Commerce, indicates that this condition does not hold true for the thirty-four States listed in the department's figures. The percentage in 1921 was 11.5 per 100,000 population, as against 10.4 in 1920. In all of the thirty-four States, with one exception, this proportional percentage was greater in 1921 than in 1917.

This apparent failure of the existing enforcement method, in spite of the restrictive measures in the laws, the great number of arrests, jail commitments and license revocations, is leading some of the broadminded officials in charge of the enforcement policy to give more intensive study to the subject. The ultimate idea is to attain a more reasonable co-operation of motorcar users in recognizing the sanity of the law.

The direction that this study is beginning to take was well expressed by Alden J. McMurtry, recently consulting engineer of the Connecticut Motor Vehicle Commission, at a recent meeting in this city of the metropolitan section of the Society of Automatic Engineers, saying that strict enforcement even to the point of oppression, will cause almost as many accidents as when the enforcement is neglected. Mr. McMurtry said:

Wrong Enforcement Psychology.

"Under the present system of enforcement in Connecticut the arrest and conviction of an operator carry with it no thought of accident prevention. The operator does not feel that he must be more careful not to have an accident but merely that he must be more careful not to get arrested. The psychology of the thing is entirely wrong.

"The arrest and conviction of operators have not been effective as an object lesson to other possible violators because under the short-sighted enforcement policy no judgment is used by the officers in making arrests, nor by the local courts in imposing the penalty. The unsuspecting are arrested on technicalities, while the flagrant violators of common sense rules of safety go unharmed, at liberty to contribute to the dangers of motor traffic because better versed in the art of escaping arrest. Instead of being an object lesson in the importance of driving with all due regard to safety, such enforcement educates a certain type of operators to more skillful ways of evading the law. It is just this type of operator, above all others, that the law should regulate.

"The aim of the enforcement policy should be to compel the operator to observe the laws rather to inflict punishment upon him after the laws have been violated and injury done. The small town constable and his attitude toward motorists must go. Motor vehicle inspectors must be sent out with the idea of warning operators of their responsibilities, not with the purpose of picking off the occasional operator who happens to be technically guilty of violation. Experience shows that where the enforcement policy is narrow-minded the unlucky operators are those who get caught, while those who constitute a constant menace are able to outwit the enforcement officers."

Proper education of the operator, Mr. McMurtry believes, will prove most efficient in accident prevention. The cause of the accident should be regarded to a greater degree than the result.

"Assuming that the operator," he adds, "has a working knowledge of the law and accident cause, the next step is to see that he can recognize a situation which is covered by a rule and remember the rule. He may be assisted in this by a verbal or written warning, or by having his license endorsed to show that his attention has been called to that rule. If when given a warning the officer finds that his license has been indorsed for a previous warning for the same offense he should summon the operator to court.

"It is this system of education and warning that will separate the unintentional violator from the criminal or intentional violator. When this is accomplished, the unintentional violator will not fear the enforcement officer. On the contrary, he will look to him as a protection and will co-operate and assist the officer in every way. This condition existed to a considerable extent in Connecticut until the Motor Vehicle Inspection Department was absorbed by the State Police Department.

"The operator who cannot profit by education and warning is the man we must eliminate from the highways, temporarily or permanently."

Law Arouses Resentment.

Mr. McMurtry criticised the attitude of resentment usually shown by motorists when stopped and asked to show their operating license card. He called it unthinkable for a State to wait until something happens before it is able to ascertain whether the operator is licensed.

"Public opinion," he said, "has condemned the procedure of surprising operators with a State-wide license inspection as an injustice. It would seem that if the State made clear the purpose of such inspection public opinion would soon endorse the procedure as the safest, most logical and most effective course of action. It is essential that there should be a severe penalty for operating a motor vehicle without a license. There are more unlicensed operators driving motor vehicles than one would generally suppose."

A similar condition has been noticed in Detroit by Inspector Harry H. Jackson, head of the Police Traffic Division in that city. In discussing motor accidents and prevention he recently stated:

"It is very frequent that when drivers are stopped for violation of the ordinance they become aggressive and display a feeling of resentment, believing that the officer was too technical. Apparently the driver fails to realize that he is jeopardizing the lives of others by his careless and thoughtless actions."

Inspector Jackson is evidently in accord with Mr. McMurtry's views on proper education in traffic regulation.

"This resentful feeling on the part of the public," he says, "would not be displayed if they were more concerned with the keen necessity of effective regulation. The traffic provisions are just, reasonable and were enacted with safety the first consideration. To have effective traffic regulation we must first have an awakened public, alive and familiar with the tremendous loss in lives, money and time the community is suffering through street accidents, most of which arise from the personal disregard of laws and their enforcement.

More Intoxicated Drivers.

One of the greatest evils confronting traffic safety is the large number of intoxicated drivers. These cases have increased since prohibition enforcement. A report just issued in Detroit shows that of 505 Detroit licenses revoked during the first ten months of the present year 403 were due to driving cars while under the influence of liquor. Mr. McMurtry, in his address, said:

"Since the advent of prohibition not only the number of cases of intoxicated operators has increased, but the condition of intoxication is more pronounced; it extends even to partial unconsciousness."

In Connecticut motor vehicle violations due to intoxication reached the number of 1,412 in 1921. In 1920 the number was 888 and in 1919 only 544.

In this city there has been a similar increase. At the Motor Vehicle Bureau it was explained that in the early part of 1920, violations of the law due to intoxication while driving were from two to three in two weeks. During the latter half of 1921 the cases jumped to nine or ten, and the two weeks' list has now doubled. From Oct. 15 to Nov. 1 twenty-four cases due to intoxication were before the Traffic Court. In four instances the license have been revoked. Some were fined as high as $225, others sent to jail for five days to three months, and several cases are pending for Special Sessions trial. A list of all these cases is kept and if convicted, but without revocation of license by the court, the licenses of none of the convicted operators will be renewed on expiration by the State Motor Vehicle Bureau for one year.