Popular Science Monthly 



227 



Such bridges as these are responsible for 

 many fataUties. When the spring rains 

 cause the rivers to rise, these Hght bridges 

 are carried away, or so undermined that 

 they cannot support the weight of an or- 

 dinary automobile 



costing the country about twenty-five 

 million dollars a year, a sum sufficient 

 to build many miles of paved roads — 

 an estimate based on an allowance of 

 ten thousand dollars as the value of a 

 human life. The loss in Iowa, econom- 

 ic and real, is more than one million 

 dollars. 



The greatest contributing factors to 

 this huge death list are bad roads and 

 bridges, speeding and reckless driving. 

 The Iowa Highway Commission, 

 realizing that it cannot put a stop to 

 reckless driving and speeding, is work- 

 ing on a plan to make the highways 

 as safe as possible, and has succeeded 

 in bringing about a material reduction 

 in the number of accidents. Still, the 

 commission realizes that even the 

 safest roads will not make speeding 

 entirely safe. It has begun a cam- 

 paign against reckless driving. 



Second in the list comes the grade 

 railroad crossing, which takes an un- 

 usually heavy toll of lives and mangled 

 limbs in a year's time. There are 

 eight thousand six hundred and sev- 

 enty-six railroad crossings in Iowa, and 



of this number nine hundred have been 

 classed as a constant menace to life by 

 the commission. The work of remov- 

 ing these dangerous crossings was 

 taken up in a serious manner more 

 than a year ago, and at the present 

 time nearly one hundred of the nine 

 hundred crossings are scheduled for 

 improvement in 1916. Improvements 

 were completed on eighteen crossings 

 during 1915. 



The task of removing and relocating 

 these bad crossings is a stupenduous 

 one, the average cost of each change 

 ordered so far being four thousand 

 four hundred and forty-seven dollars. 

 At this rate it would cost Iowa nearly 

 twenty million dollars as her share of 

 the improvement. The railroads must 

 pay a sum equally as large, too, before 

 these nine hundred crossings are made 

 safe for ordinary travel. The question 

 as to whether these costly improve- 

 ments are worth while is best answer- 



Another view of the tractor and trailer 



which fell through a wooden trestle. The 



driver of the machine and his assistant 



died on the way to the hospital 



