Accidents on the road are due to
Defects in the road,
Defects in the machine, or
Defects in the driver.

American roads are bad, but not so bad that they can, with
justice, be held responsible for many of the troubles attributed
to them.

The roads are as they are, a practically constant,--and, for some
time to come,--an unchangeable quantity. The roads are like the
hills and the mountains, obstacles which must be overcome, and
machines must be constructed to overcome them.

Complaints against American roads by American manufacturers of
automobiles are as irrelevant to the issue as would be complaints
on the part of traction-engine builders or wagon makers. Any man
who makes vehicles for a given country must make them to go under
the conditions--good, bad, or indifferent--which prevail in that
country. In building automobiles for America or Australia, the
only pertinent question is, "What are the roads of America or
Australia?" not what ought they to be.

The manufacturer who finds fault with the roads should go out of
the business.

Roads will be improved, but in a country so vast and sparsely
settled as North America, it is not conceivable that within the
next century a net-work of fine roads will cover the land; for