Page:Motoring Magazine and Motor Life January 1915.djvu/7

1915.

Marking the launching of an aggressive campaign to keep its 600 members constantly informed about road conditions and traffic regulations and to further promote motor touring, the Automobile Club of Seattle recently issued the first of a series of bulletins. The bulletins will be issued by the club under the direction of President Joseph Blethen and the following members of the board of trustees: R. L. Sparker, Frank M. Fretwell, W. A. Avery, C. L. Morris, N. B. Abrams and John W. Roberts.

Members of the club are urged in the bulletin to prepare a log of every trip they take and send it to the secretary, 504 Northern Bank Building, that they may be printed and sent to all the club members. Logs of trips over new roads are especially wanted, journeys that can be made with pleasure and comfort; not endurance or speed contests.

The bulletin deals with the new regulations governing headlights on automobiles. Commenting on this subject, the club publication says:

"Chief Lang prescribes a very simple remedy by which the strong headlights may be made acceptable to the police, and yet not cut down the quantity of light which the driver needs. Take soap or brass polish and cloud the top of the inside of the glass front of your headlights. With one sort of reflector this will throw all of your light in front of the car for a goodly distance and yet will shade the globe or burner from the eyes of the pedestrians and of the drivers of the cars coming in the opposite direction. It may be that your lens is such shape that you will have to cloud the bottom half. Try it out for yourself. When you have found which half of your glass is to be clouded, you can make out of plain white paper or of celluloid a shield to place on the inside of the glass, which you can readily remove when you are going to take a country run.

"Also, Chief Lang says that kerosene side lights which are carried on many cars for protection when standing at the curb will not be molested.

"This ordinance properly administered by the police department and properly respected by automobilists will result in the simplifying of what is at present an unsatisfactory situation.

"Members are urged to meet the police half way in traffic regulations. Chief Louis M. Lang has ordered his officers to meet you there, and if necessary to fudge over a foot or two. This club ought to make the motor vehicle situation more comfortable, rather than to complicate it. President Blethen is ready to go to the front of your grievances; but he proposes to help Chief Lang regulate the buzz wagons, and he wants the club to aid him."

The Automobile Club of Seattle has been in existence for eight years, during which time it has accomplished much good in the direction of improving traveling conditions, fostering touring, placing sign posts on country highways and bringing about the enactment of fair legislation.

The club now has more than 600 members, which is a small proportion of the motor car owning population of Seattle, and an active campaign is to be made for new members. The dues are only $12 a year, and in view of the great amount of good work that the club is accomplishing for motorists, it is entitled to the hearty support of all the automobilists in the city.