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I ou'm: taking a Summer vacation trip with
your family heading into northern Michigan for
sunn1 fishing and swimming. Von enter Michigan from
out-of-state, and you're moving along the highway
at a comfortable speed when the driver of the Mich
igan ear in front of you puts his left arm straight
out the window and stows down as you approach an
intersect ion.
The pavement widens at the intersection and, after
slowing down, you sw inn the right to pass.
Hut just as you start around, the other car turns
directly in front of you. and you hit it amidships.
You're lucky; you were slowed sufficiently so that
no one was hurt. Hut the damage to both cars runs
up in the hundreds of dollars.
Whose fault'' Yours, of course. Hut, you say, he
turned i lvilit after signaling for a left turn! Sure, it
was a left turn signal m yoiir state hut not in Mich
igan. There the left dim extended enn mean a start,
stop, or turn in 1'ither direction!
This is only one example of ninny hundreds of
complex, confusnm. mid conlhoting truffle law across
the length and hieadth of the United States Sup
imsedly treated to protect motorists, in many casts
these las do exactly tile )Xsito. As 0 result, many
Americans motonnu cross-counti y this iir w ill find
themselves in trouble not of their own making.
Consider souc of the other remarkable contra
dictions in tiuffic laws. In one ei iss-country trip last
yc!tr, I iau into tl'.o following wo!ter of confusion:
In one Midwestern town. 1 was tongue-lashed by
a icliccman lor turning ughl after a stop for a rod
light; in nlti'tl.ci c,t m the Mine Male. I was
c'lflS'Oni'J ti'r holding up traffic by not tiii n;ij) under
ho same cilrutiisances. hi iic'thor i.'ase wns there n
slglt lI'tilUltlltK tho jn'OpOi pinoeduro
In Colorado and Vtah. 1 w.is honked .it jiv cssantlv
4 Family Wttkly, Jtni 7. If.r,
for stopping behind loading school buses. I finally
inquired and found out it was legal to pass school
buses in those states. I shudder to think what might
happen to Colorado and Utah drivers who try that
gambit in other states!
I saw at least a half-dozen different types of high
way centerhne markings ranging from nothing at
all to a pair of solid lines sandwiching a dotted one.
In some states, any line meant no passing; in some,
there was a continuous center line with no markings
for passing; in others, a continuous dotted line with
sohd hues to indicate no passing. And so it went.
True, it wns possible to make an educated guess as
to what was indicated; but even working hard at it.
I found my miosscs weren't always right.
1 disvovered the hard way- that most states do
not permit pjirkinu on a bridge, even thoimh it's loyal
in 21 other states.
In one small Western town, I played footsie with
a car facing me for several minutes when we both
wanted to make a left turn-while other drivers
blasted their horns behind us. I was trying to turn
inside the intersection, as I had been taught to do.
Hut such a turn was illegal in tins state, where loft
turns an' made iiier crossing the intersection.
iiNiv conilicting tratl'ie laws, but some state
ami local orditigucos make cros.t-countrv driv
ing' dangerous Mnny times these laws are sat'etv
hazards Nvause they put such a mental bunion on
the driver trying to kt op abreast of thorn that he
diusn't pay sullicient attention to his driving
New Yolk, for example, has a alt m p h. speed hunt
throughout the sUUV whether the road is a four-lane
expressway or a backwoods lane- and traffic laws
there haven't been changed miiijj since 1!1L".I
A study taken at 11 sites throughout the state bv
the liurcau of Public Roads showed that more than
half the drivers were exceeding the unrealistic speed
limit most of them all the while watching in the
rear-view mirror for pursuing police ears, thus in
creasing the danger of an accident.
A number of surveys have shown almost beyond
question that realistic speed limits promote traffic
safety. When the State of Washington raised th..'
speed limit from 50 to 60 m.p.h. on several hundred
miles of primary roads, fatalities on the highway de
creased by 33 percent. St. Paul, Minn., raised the
limit to 10 m.p.h. on a well-traveled street whole
motoiists were consistently exceeding a 30-mile limit.
Result: drivers obeyed the new speed law. and acci
dents decreased considerably.
How serious is all this? According to the Council
of State Governments: "Out-of-state drivers are re
sponsible for 20 percent or more of accidents in some
stales- mainly tluough unfamiliarity with local driv
itm habits and regulations." An official of the High
way Transportation Congress estimates that unitied
traffic laws could reduce accidents 30 percent.
( 'oNKt.H T1J.C. and foolish traffic laws aren't a now
problem, but they are fast becoming a desperate
one as the number of cars traveling cross-count : y
increases almost as rapidly as their horsepower.
UnrK -three years ago, Herbert Hoover sponsored 1
movement for nationwide uniformity of traffic ordi
nances. Although progress has been made since tin n.
we still have a long way to go.
As Jung ;,go as W20. the National Conference or.
Street and Highway Safety appointed n committee to
loview tniffic laws and create uniform standa ds
These model ordinances for both states and muiiu i
palities have boon carefully and periodically brought'
up to ,.n. since - and a new revision Ins ju-'