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Old 04-18-07, 09:49 PM
  #161  
Blue Order
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Originally Posted by John Forester
That's very interesting. However, William Phelps Eno is credited with the first real traffic code, in many articles. He wrote: "Reform in our Street Traffic is Urgently Needed" in 1900, and he wrote "Rules of the Road" in 1903, which was adopted by NYC. I presume that Eno's first publication indicates that whatever was done in 1897 didn't work very well. In matters of traffic engineering, even just the history of traffic engineering, I think that I would give greater credibility to the unchallenged (so far as I know) conclusions of the professionals in the field than I would give to writers of popular social history.
By 1903, automobiles were beginning to appear on the roads. That would be reason enough to revise the traffic codes, don't you think?

I suspect that the Society of Traffic Engineers is perhaps "autocentric"? If so, then their pointing to a 1903 statute as "the first" Traffic Code might make some sense, if it was the first to address their field of expertise.

Incidentally, Smith is (or perhaps was?) a Professor of History at Cal State San Bernardino, so he's not simply a "writer" of a "popular social history."
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