Henderson Daily Dispatch

License Of Drivers Is Now Urged Public Is Becoming Aroused by Steady Increase in Auto Accidents

Daily Dispatch Bureau, In the Sir Walter Hotel.
By J. C. Baskerville.

Raleigh, Oct. 16.--The steady increase in the number killed and injured each week in automobile accidents in the State--nine were killed and more than a score injured over the past week-end--is serving to focus more and more attention upon the problem of better enforcement of the highway and motor vehicle laws.

There is a growing sentiment here that the coming legislature will almost be compelled by the force of public opinion to enact a strict state-wide drivers' license law and to enlarge the State highway patrol to at least 200 patrolmen in order to better enforce these laws.

In speaking before the Raleigh Rotary Club here, Director L. S. Harris of the Motor Vehicle Bureau of the Department of Revenue, under which the highway patrol operates, pointed out that it was utterly impossible for the present 56 patrolmen to prove very effective in preventing accidents or curtailing reckless careless driving, when some 450,000 automobiles are operating over more than 50,000 miles of highways.
He also pointed out that in addition to their duties as highway patrolmen, the last General Assembly imposed upon them the additional duties of collecting State revenue and of collecting samples of gasoline from bulk and filling stations to be tested by the State.

"After years of observation here in North Carolina, I am convinced that we need not less than 200 patrolmen--that would be only two patrolmen to each county and still leave each man to cover 250 miles of highway each day--if the highways of the State are to be adequately patrolled and any effective accident prevention work done," Harris said. "In addition, we need a strict drivers license law that will really make the reckless careless drivers feel the law when it does clamp down on them, but not until then can we begin to reduce the present high toll of dead and injured in automobile accidents."