Safe car speed 25 miles per hour

Sunday, 19 September 2010 00:00

September 18, 1929. A proposal to limit the speed of automobiles to 25 miles per hour was made at the national convention of American Insurance Commissioners, held in Toronto, the Toronto Telegram reports. "As an instrument of death and destruction," the automobile was said to be "without a rival."

New Hampshire insurance commissioner John E. Sullivan noted that the United States, with six percent of the world population, had 81 percent of the automobiles.

Massachusetts' experience with its compulsory insurance law demonstrated that a 10 percent reduction in the premium for safe drivers failed to afford any protection, Sullivan said. He blamed most accidents on "men who were not sufficiently qualified mentally to drive a car," and who would not be restrained by lower rates for safe drivers.

The present automobile rating plan could not, he submitted, ever be a serious factor in the existing moral hazard, which occurs by chance, and that chance cannot be eliminated by pious hopes.
Others complained that the careful drivers, especially travellers, who had never had an accident, were entitled to preferential rates. Another suggested that careful drivers were not paying too much, "but the reckless driver was not being penalized sufficiently."

Thomas Donaldson of Pennsylvania proposed speed-limiting governors. "I believe the proper way to protect the public against the everyday menace on highways is to go back to the manufacturers and compel them to put governors on all automobiles, with a maximum of 28 miles an hour, unless these automobiles are to be used for fire or police purposes."