By : Roger I. Roots, J.D., Ph.D.
“The right to make use of an automobile as a vehicle
of travel,” wrote Justice Ladd, “is no longer an open question.” n39 “The owners thereof
have the same rights in the roads and streets as the drivers of horses or those riding
a bicycle or traveling by some other vehicle.”
The Kansas Supreme Court struck down the Topeka ordinance and
reversed Swift’s conviction, declaring that
[each] citizen has the absolute right to choose for himself the mode of conveyance he
desires, whether it be by wagon or carriage, by horse, motor or electric car, or by
bicycle, or astride of a horse, subject to the sole condition that he will observe all
those requirements that are known as the “law of the road.”
The right to
travel by the vehicle of one’s choice was thought to be as important as any personal
freedom recognized under the Constitution.
The ninety and nine of every hundred people of this and other countries will not
abandon the public thoroughfares to a single class comprising less than 1 per cent of
all the population. If a selfish, reckless, and indulgent class must run faster than the
majority of mankind, let them build their speedways and kill each other if
they will, but they must not be permitted to continue to terrorize and kill the people
whose toil and tax maintain the public thoroughfares.Representative Cousins stated that fines and arrests did little to deter speeders, who
simply paid the fines and continued speeding. n98 “Horrible and gruesome incidents are
of almost daily occurrence,” and the recklessness of automobilists “has bespattered
boulevards with blood.” n99 Representative Cousins went on to state,
it should be said in justice to many automobilists, that after running over people they
have stopped and rendered quick assistance and have furnished flowers for the
funerals of their victims, although in a great many instances it appears that the
greatest utility which high-speed gearing accomplishes is getting away from the
corpse before the machine numbers can be detected.