UNFIT CHAUFFEURS.

Louis Livingston Seaman
The New York Times
November 18, 1922

Rules Which, If Enforced, Would Preserve the Public's Rights.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

Twenty-seven years ago, when the electric street railways first began to operate, accidents and fatalities were so numerous as to create widespread dismay and call for drastic preventive action. Many schemes were developed and eventually the safety fender was invented and came into universal use, proving an absolute safeguard and almost entirely eliminating the danger of accidents of a certain kind.

But the menace these days of motor cars is of a very different character and must be handled by methods still more drastic and more direct. It is said, too truly I fear, that many chauffeurs are ex-criminals; that many have defective eyesight or impaired hearing; that others are drunkards, bootleggers or "hold-up" bandits; that many are criminally careless, and still others physically defective. It is time that the authorized representatives of city and State should take steps to protect our citizens from this class of persons who menace life and safety by their reckless driving or utilize their license to facilitate their criminal enterprises.

As a Trustee of the American Museum of Safety, I beg to submit a plan which, if followed, would, I believe, make it possible for our splendid police force under its able Commissioner to arrest the danger we are facing now. My suggestion is as follows:

1. All licenses now in existence should be revoked. Regulations should be rigidly enforced against the granting or renewing of licenses to persons under 18 years of age, to ex-convicts, to persons with defective vision or impaired hearing, to drunkards, to chauffeurs after third arrest.

2. No license should be issued or renewed without the well-defined fingerprint of the holder on the license itself, so as to insure positive identification and aid in preventing chauffeurs from driving while out on bond.

3. When a chauffeur is arrested the motor car or taxi or truck should be impounded until the case of the chauffeur is settled. This would encourage prompt action. Where the case was necessarily protracted the car might be released under bond of owner. All the occupants of the car at the time should be compelled to submit to fingerprinting at the discretion of the arresting officer. In this way many taxi-bandit gangs would undoubtedly be identified under one arrest and one of the most flagrant methods of crime be eliminated.

4. The police should be empowered to arrest chauffeurs who park or stop their taxis or cars within twenty-five feet of the corner, especially on crowded avenues or streets on which surface cars or stages pass.

I believe that the enforcement of such provisions would do much to regain for the public "their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

LOUIS LIVINGSTON SEAMAN, M. D.
New York, Nov. 15, 1922.