Los Banos Rotary Club History
More Stringent Driving Laws Urged

Speaking at the Rotary Club luncheon Tuesday noon, Norman H. Street, Fresno auto and casualty insurance man, advocated the enactment of much more stringent regulations governing the physical and mental abilities of people who drive motor vehicles. Too many today's drivers, he said, actually are not competent to handle today's high powered, high speed cars in the congested traffic that is on almost every street and highway.

Too, he said, accident reports show that the greatest percentage of accidents involve drivers under 25 years of age, and most of them under 21. Street attributes this to a youth's lack of mature wisdom, and lack of respect for the power that hurtles a 2,000 pound car over the highway. He placed the blame largely on parents to properly instruct their children in safe driving habits, and the tendency to give the young driver too much freedom with the family car.
Commenting briefly on the constantly increasing insurance rate, Street said the rate is determined in exact proportion to the money paid out by the insurance companies in accident claims. One of the main factors, he said, is the awarding, by sympathetic juries, of lavish sums of money in payment of accident-suffering injuries. Street emphasized that insurance is designed and intended to provide compensation for medical and other damages, within reason, and said that individuals are entitled to and should receive compensation for their injuries within reason.

The big problem, he pointed out, is not in payment of actual damages and loss of time, but the evaluation of "time and suffering," and it is these factors that some "unscrupulous" attorneys stress in pleading for fabulous sums for their clients.

Street followed his talk with a question and answer period, in which he answered numerous questions from the group. Among other things, he said that compulsory insurance programs, such as is in effect in Massachusetts, would not tend to lessen present day rates. Rather, he said, experience is that auto insurance costs much more in Massachusetts than it does in California. He also said that insurance companies do not favor set fees for medical, hospital, loss of time, or for stipulated injuries, stating that records show a tendency to set every claim at the maximum allowed, regardless of the actual expense in the individual case.

The speaker was introduced by A. P. Machado, local insurance man and club member.

May 15, 1953

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