STATE BARRIERS

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 90, 13 October 1934, Page 26

STATE BARRIERS

TRANSPORT IN AMERICA

COMMERCIAL DIFFICULTIES

To the motorist rolling across the, countryside in his automobile, State' lines are as imaginary as the Equator, but to public officials they are often battle fronts, states the "New York Times." Traffic wars between States break out with Tar Eastern regularity, j The latest conflict, it appears, is now going on between Massachusetts and Maine, In a recent letter to.the""Bos|ton Herald," Miss H. C. Shaw comI plains that the authorities would not permit her to ride ,in a hired car from a summer hotel in Maine to her home in Cambridge, 70 miles away. Massachusetts would not let her make the trip in a Maine car,, and Maine forbade her to send for a Massachusetts, car to take her home. If a friend had not been on hand to drive her to Cambridge in a private car, she would have had to use two hired vehicles, changing at the State line from, one registered in Maine to another registered in Massachusetts. Surely such a 'situation is anachronistic. But it. is not unique. There have, for instance, b.een taxicab wars between New York and Connecticut. New York hackmen have been arrested and fined for driving passertgers from their business offices in the city to. their suburban homes in Connecticut. - Truck wars between States are also somewhat less unusual than California weather. There was one between Indiana and ■Kentucky during which militia patrolled the border to keep trucks from crossing the line. In 1932, a truck war between Pennsylvania and New Jersey spread to Maryland, Delaware, New York, West Virginia, and .Ohio. While the war lasted trucks in each State had to stay at home. Sometimes differences between States affect private operators and cars. For example, it is illegal for a man licensed to drive by one State to operate a car registered in another, unless the two States have signed a reciprocity agreement. If is by means of' reciprocity agreements that interstate conflicts are avoided, but such treaties are voluntary between States, and it often happens that one self-consciously sovereign Commonwealth Yon '* reciprocate with another. '■ - .■:'• There is reciprocity, for instance, between ' Massachusetts and New York. A man with a New York driver's licence may operate:. a-.Massachusetts car in either State and vice versa. New York has also' established, reciprocity with other States. But some States won't enter into" complete reciprocity agreements and others will permit little more than the passage- of New York cars through . their jealously-guarded, imperial domains.

Drivers' licences cannot be renewed in California without the applicant first passing a vision test. A written examination and driving test must also be taken if the examiner so decides.;': ■

n the electric horn appeal's sluggish remove the motor cover and add a few' drops of oil to the bearing at each end of the armature shaft. To ensure effee;-. tive tone the armature shaft should be lubricated at least every two months.