TOLL OF THE ROAD

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 72, 22 September 1930, Page 17

TOLL OF THE ROAD

AMERICANS ALARMED

Dr. Julius Klein, Assistant Secretary ox Commerce in the United States, has called attention to the "robots on wheels," with their terrific toll of life and injury, and to the menace confronting trade by reason of the enormous congestion on the roads and in the cities, which were never constructed to bear such traffic, says the "Daily Telegraph." He roforred to "stripped for action" fifteen-foot speed roadsters and thundering, elephantine 'buses, with other features of American automobile traffic, as "merciless Frankenstein monsters and Molochs which may finally crush us" unless public opinion and tho Governmental authorities solve the appalling problem by giving constant thought to the necessity of building bigger and better highway* md also improving the 'present traffic rules. In the United States last year there were about 28,000 road fatalities —a situation, said Dr. Klein, black with tragedy and shameful in some respects to civilisation, because it denotes at least a measure of incompetence.

Apart from the intensely human problem, increasing damage is being inflicted on the vital commercial interests of the United States by the impairment of valuable property in vehicles, wastage of millions of transportation hours, and lessened profits of business homes whose activities are affected by the ills which the motor-vehiclo congestion brings in its wake.