Speed

If 49 of the most upright and respectable U. S. ministers held a convention and announced that they favor swearing, public surprise would not have been much greater than it was last week when 49 of the safest and most cautious U. S. motorists held a convention and announced that they favor speeding. One from each State and the District of Columbia, the 49 were selected in local contests open only to persons who had driven at least 50,000 miles in ten years without accident or conviction of a traffic violation. Driving to Manhattan in their own cars at the expense of the American Automobile Association and the Commercial Investment Trust Safety Foundation, they settled down at the WaldorfAstoria for a three-day palaver about highway safety. Only one of their deliberations produced anything newsworthy: a poll of their open road driving speeds filled out anonymously by 42 of the 49. The results:

Six admitted that they usually drove at 60 m. p. h. Four confessed to 55, seven to 50, two to between 50 and 60. Of the rest, most traveled regularly at 45 or faster. Only one drove at 35. The average for the whole group was 49 m. p. h., which is 5 m. p. h. faster than the average legal state limit. Explained Safe-Driver Emmett M. Williams of Georgia, who has driven 1,000,000 miles in 28 years without accident: "I drive pretty fast. At times I've hit 90 m. p. h. I think you ought to get out of the way of folks."

Despite such evidence to the contrary, highway authorities continue to regard speed as a prime cause of highway accidents which last year took 36,400 lives, this year are likely to take more.* Put into effect in New York State as the safe drivers departed was a set of stringent new penalties for speeding or reckless driving. Sample: $100 fine for first offense, $250 for second. This promptly scared the Automobile Manufacturers Association into a formal resolution asking members to stop advertising the top speeds of their automobiles.

Quite the reverse was the action of the safest U. S. passenger transport means. In New York newspapers appeared screaming advertisements reading:

SPEEDING ALLOWED

"Despite the new drastic speed-laws, you can travel in New York State at 65 to 80 miles per hour . . . and not get a 'ticket!' . . . Travel by New York Central. . . ."

*In spite of a constant blare of publicity, sudden bursts of law-enforcement, there were more U. S. highway deaths in May, June and July 1936, than in the same months of 1935-

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