Shall Vehicle Motormen be Licensed?

The Horseless Age
5 April 1899

At last our authorities are turning their attention critically to the motor vehicle to see what sort of creature it is and how they can best rebuke the bumptious new-fangled invention that has dared to thrust itself into our modern civilization without asking their consent, for the powers that be regard every radical improvement much as a grandsire does a prankish grandson, whom he feels it his duty to soundly castigate at every opportunity. The strange machine that everybody has been talking about is now actually in our streets in daily increasing numbers, and something must be done to determine its status and limit its usefulness or lawmakers would have idle time upon their hands. Besides, many people who rode in the wonderful “One Hoss Shay,” and haven't mustered up enough courage since to take a more modern conveyance, picture the new machine as a juggernaut, liable at any time to escape the hands of the motorman and run amuck in the streets, overthrowing pedestrians and demolishing horse vehicles. Space writers in the daily press have fostered these fears by accounts of imaginary runaways of motor vehicles, the cue for which is seen to be taken directly from the horse runaways with which we are all too familiar. Deceived by these misinterpretations, and perhaps influenced to some extent by the cries of the “vested interests” that wish to be saved from the consequences of their ignorance and obstinacy, our legislators have put on their spectacles and are prepared to scrutinize the newcomer with no friendly eye. In the New York Assembly at Albany they are doing this now. A bill has been introduced by Assemblyman Henry W. Hill, requiring every operator of a motor vehicle to take out a license from properly constituted authorities. The following is the text of the bill:

An act providing for the licensing of operators, motormen and drivers of cabs, trucks or other vehicles propelled by any power other than animal power in cities of the first class.

Section 1. After the first day of July, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, no person shall act as the operator, motorman or driver of any cab, truck or other vehicle propelled by any power other than animal power upon the streets or public places of any city of the first class without obtaining a license, as provided by this act.

Section 2. Within twenty days after this act becomes a law the mayor of every city of the first class shall appoint a competent person to act as examiner of persons desiring to act as operators, motormen or drivers of such cabs, trucks or other vehicles. Such examiner shall not receive any salary or compensation from the city, but may apply to his own use the fees collected pursuant to this act.

Section 3. He shall at least once in each month, at a time and place to be prescribed by him, conduct an examination of applicants for licenses to act as operators, motormen or drivers of such cabs, trucks or other vehicles. Such examination shall include the practical operation of the kind of cab, truck or other vehicle for which a license is desired. Such examination shall also include an investigation of the habits and physical qualifications of the applicants. Any person desiring to be so examined shall, at least five days before the date of the examination, file with the examiner a written application, stating his name, experience and the character of the vehicle for which a license is desired. He shall also, upon making such application, pay to the examiner a fee of $1.

Section 4. Such examiner shall issue to each person who shall pass a satisfactory examination a license, stating the name of such person and the character of cab, truck or other vehicle for which he is authorized to act as operator, motorman or driver. Any such license may thereafter be revoked by such examiner, upon proof to his satisfaction that the licensee is, for any reason, unfit to act as operator, motorman or driver of such cab, truck or other vehicle.

Section 5. Any person who, after July first, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, shall act as operator, motorman or driver of any cab, truck or other vehicle propelled by any power other than animal power upon the streets or public places of any city of the first class, without a license issued pursuant to this act and unrevoked, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

Section 6. This act shall not apply to operators, motormen or engineers on the cars or engines of street surfact, elevated or steam railroads.

Section 7. This act shall take effect immediately.

The arguments advanced by the advocates of this bill are of the old kind. The motor vehicle is a machine, they say, and the one who has charge of it should be made to take out a license, like an engineer. There is a wide difference between the motor vehicles at present in use in our streets and a steam engine. An engineer is required to have a license, not because he is in charge of a machine, but because he has the care of a steam boiler, which if not properly attended to, may explode and destroy life and property. The guiding of a motor vehicle in the streets no more calls for an engineer's experience than does the driving of a horse or the manipulation of a trolley motor.

If we dismiss from our minds the false idea that the motor vehicle is in any way to be compared to an ordinary steam engine, and hence is not a source of danger from explosion, we come next to the question of control, and here we find a prolific source of error in the popular mind. The manoeuvres of the motor vehicle are so much more rapid than those of the horse vehicle that the public fancy the thing is continually “getting away” from the motorman, when, as a matter of fact, it is all the time under the most perfect control. They know that a horse vehicle performing such evolutions and making such speeds in city streets would be beyond the control of the driver, and, knowing nothing of the superior control of the motor vehicle they assume that the motor is running amuck too. The point to be dwelt on in combatting this error is that the motor vehicle is far easier controlled than the horse, and that speeds and manoeuvres impossible for the quadruped are easily managed by the motor. Our assemblymen can satisfy themselves of the truth of this assertion by actual study of the machines, and they should not undertake to legislate for them until they have made this study.

If it can be conclusively shown that the motor vehicle is not a dangerous machine, and that it is much easier controlled than the horse, why is special legislation needed to govern its use in our streets? Trolley cars and horse vehicles in charge of unlicensed operators are in full swing in our thoroughfares. Accidents occasionally occur to both, yet no one suggests that drivers and trolley motormen should be licensed. The general laws of the road, presumably known to all, are considered sufficient in these cases. Why are they not sufficient to cover the use of motors, too? The violator of the laws of the road suffers the penalty. If he is an employee of a firm or corporation, his employers are held responsible for damages. Street accidents are a cause of delay and loss to all concerned, and all wish to avoid them. Employers of truckmen, drivers and motormen find it to their interest to secure careful and competent men and instruct them fully in the duties of their position. How will these conditions be changed by the entrance of the motor vehicle? Will not prudence dictate that competent men be selected to handle the motors, just as it now does in the choice of drivers and trolley motormen? As to the qualifications necessary, it is merely a matter of manual dexterity, aquired by practice, and necessitating a quick eye and a cool head. Some men lack the two last-named requisites and are discarded in preliminary examinations. The Electric Vehicle Co., of New York, and the electric cab companies of Paris, both have rigid systems of testing and training all their employees before entrusting them with cabs. It is the ordinary, every-day rule of all business enterprises which necessitate the operation of vehicles of any kind, and it would be an intolerable abuse for the law to step in and undertake to select a private firm's employees, when this can be much better done by the employer himself.

In France, the regulations governing the use of motor vehicles are characteristically minute and voluminous. Among the provisions recently added to these regulations is one to the effect that motor vehicles shall not frighten horses nor give off disagreeable odors. Vehicles weighing more than 550 pounds are required to reverse. Every purchaser of a motor vehicle is supposed to receive from the manufacturer a complete description of it; which he must submit to the prefect of the department in which he lives, accompanied by his name and address. If everything is found satisfactory, he receives a permit to run his vehicle throughout France.

Only in case of properly organized races, is it allowable to exceed the legal limit of eighteen miles an hour in the country.

Every conductor of a motor vehicle must possess a license granted by the prefect of police, on the approval of the engineering department, and in important centers where the engineers alone cannot examine all the vehicles presented, inspectors are appointed. A special certificate is required for conductors of motorcycles weighing less than 300 pounds.

If a tractor or wagon train is to be used full details of the route, wagons, etc. must be submitted. Each wagon must be provided with suitable brakes and a sufficient number of employees must accompany the train. If vehicles are intended for public service the stands will be selected by the prefect.

These regulations furnish a good example of the espionage or surveillance of the government over the affairs of the individual in France. The citizen is given no discretion. Hard and fast rules are laid down for his guidance by the State, and he must obey them, whether they are exactly suited to all the conditions or not. In England and America, however, a different theory prevails. Within certain broad lines the citizen is allowed to decide for himself, without the meddlesome interference of inspectors, commissaries, and a horde of officials, great and small, to hamper his movements and do his thinking for him.

The proposed bill to license motormen in this country is an imitative measure from French precedents. It is false to our institutions, detrimental to the citizen, whose freedom it curtails, and an impediment to a most promising industry.

The most that the law should do is fix the limit of speed at which motor vehicles can be run in cities, a measure justified by the thoughless conduct of some motor vehicle enthusiasts, and by the fact that the motor vehicle is so much swifter than the horse and so far superior in control. To exceed this simple provision in the attempt to regulate motor vehicle traffic, would be un-American and unwise. In fact, it would be nugatory, for the motor vehicle is coming into general use so quickly and so overwhelmingly, and its advantages over the horse will soon be so clearly demonstrated to all, that an act like that quoted above would become a dead letter almost before the ink was dry. Legislators themselves would see its inconsistency.