National Reports:

...Louis County grand jury for September criticized the Metropolitan District for not coming to grips with the Maline Creek situation, which it termed "a serious hazard to the health of all residents of the area...

...One Republican in the House and two in the Senate stood with him...

...Thus, it was argued by some that it was unconstitutional to take money from law violators and apply it to accident insurance costs...

...Louis's growth has been outstripping the extension of sewer lines in recent years, resulting in noisome situations...

...The purpose of the District was to place sewer operations in the city and thickly populated parts of the county under a single, coordinated agency that would maintain existing facilities--some of which are none too good--and arrange financing and construction of new ones where needed...

...Only one political leader...

...permitting intoxicated person to operate...

...The effluent from bathrooms and model kitchens has been piped to convenient brooks which drain into the Missouri and Mississippi...

...A non-New Englander, observing such haste, could be pardoned for feeling that either the Legislature must have been unaware of what it was passing in 1954 or it was afraid of its own shadow...

...William Q. Kehr, an experienced man...

...failure to stop for red light, 2; operating without inspection sticker, 3; attempted larceny of an automobile...

...Unfortunately for the advocates of the surcharge system, the $500,000 collection permitted a reduction of only about 50 cents in the auto insurance rates of the drivers who had avoided demerits...

...Because of legal and fiscal complications, the new District, which is headed by six trustees, got off to a slow start...

...12: using vehicle in commission of felony, 12...

...In some instances, sanitary arrangements are vague...

...It seems that compulsory insurance is acceptable only if nobody gets hurt by having to pay for it...

...Seeing this turmoil over compulsory insurance continuing after 31 years, it is understandable why no other state has adopted compulsory insurance...

...In 1956, when the effect of the law was first felt by errant drivers, the surcharge was abruptly discarded by the Legislature...

...National Reports Bay State Repeals Auto Safety Law By Courtney Sheldon Boston In 1953, the Massachusetts Legislature required car owners to pay a surcharge on compulsory auto liability insurance rates if they were assessed demerit points for accident liability or for law violations...

...This turn of events is traceable, in part, to widely recognized inconsistencies in the application of the law and to doubt about its constitutionality...

...A water company pumped 2,500,000 gallons into the creek in an effort to flush it...

...He insists that the honey-wagon has no place in the atomic age...

...It is unlikely Massachusetts has heard the last of the surcharge issue...

...Insurance rates, varying between localities according to local accident rates, have always been a political issue...

...was named executive director, and a charge was imposed that would insure operating revenue of over $2 million annually...

...3; failure to file a report of an accident, 2; failure to stop for school bus, 3; exceeding established speed limit, 4: racing or operating on a bet or wager, 3; at fault causing fatal injury, 12...

...The first collection of surcharges brought a total of $500,000 from about 13.000 drivers...

...Citizens who previously had given little thought to sewage disposal found it a suitable subject for conversation...

...When the boom was lowered on the demerit law...

...Louis County, bungalow houses are springing up everywhere...

...While the surcharge debate continues, the still broader issue remains: whether the state should even have compulsory auto liability insurance...

...The St...

...there were already some signs that the threat of a surcharge on insurance rates was causing many motorists to follow more closely the letter of the law...

...Some of the 36 demerit causes are: failure to signal change of movement, 2 points...

...This was most certainly true of those who had erred and already had begun to pay off their four-year debt...

...Governor Herter is expected to press for a study commission to find a new acceptable plan...

...The Federal Housing Administration began refusing loans on property near polluted streams...

...The surcharges, in the opinion of some lawyers, amounted to a fine...

...If there is any one characteristic that truly distinguishes the American from his European and Asian counterpart, it is his insistence on good plumbing--that is to say, on the efficient and unobtrusive handling of waste...

...Now you can't have compulsory insurance (as Massachusetts has had since 1925) without having a lot of people get hurt...

...On hot summer days, however, when there had been little rain, householders downstream made their complaints heard with stridency...

...Frequent attempts have been made to take insurance out of private company hands and place it under a state-operated fund...

...On Beacon Hill, the Legislature turned a deaf ear and Republicans vied with Democrats to take credit for repeal...

...Louis and environs, it is a pleasure to report, now seem well on the way to having a sewer system of which every citizen can be proud...

...Louis Sewer District...

...It is obvious that some of these offenses would not necessarily be the root cause of accidents...

...Plans advanced for construction of four projects this year, with a total outlay of about $10 million...

...The decision to repeal it was almost unanimous...

...In most instances, the offending motorists had already paid a fine in police court...

...In any event, when the Legislature rushed through a repealer, it left the demerit system untouched...

...This was the first such requirement in the nation...

...On February 7, the voters of Maline Creek watershed gave enthusiastic approval to issuance of $1.7 million in bonds for a six-mile trunk-line sewer...

...This was too small a saving to convince the average motorist that it was worthwhile to champion the law and thus risk demerits himself...

...Thus, the woodland dells, which in times past had been the haunt of chickadee and cardinal, became places where no birds sang...

...A newspaper photograph showed the horrors of "the bubbling fountain of Berkeley," a clogged manhole near a residential subdivision, from which raw sewage spouted forth to drain into Maline Creek...

...So slow was the start, in fact, that late last summer, when the dry heat was bringing unwelcome odors from the forest dells of suburbia, there was a new public outcry for action...

...Out in the cornfields of St...

...Governor Herter, who sponsored the demerit system originally, attempted to roll back the tide...

...The Boston Herald warned sternly on the eve of repeal: "It appears that some car owners don't like it [the law], and a number of politicians, in and out of the Legislature, are so soft or so demagogic that they must take up the cry...

...The complaints began to roll in from drivers who had been assessed demerit points ($6 a point, payable for four years as insurance surcharges...

...Another question of constitutionality is apparent in the assessment of charges without a formal court hearing...

...But the overpowering causes of the repeal drive were election-year polities and the acute awareness of some auto drivers that the demerit system was personally costly...

...Louis Metropolitan St...

...Democrats, anxious to win control of the Legislature for the first time in Massachusetts's modern political history, were the first to be sensitive to the vulnerable spots in the law and its administration...

...Responding to the civic outcry, political authorities put curbs on new residential construction in the county where facilities for waste disposal were inadequate...

...The courts have yet to have their say, and the Democrats will not let the voters forget that Republican-sponsored legislation cost them $500,000...

...Demerit points are still being written on licenses and the Registry of Motor Vehicles can use demerit totals as proper cause to suspend licenses, This practice is not greatly different from that followed in some other states...

...The sewer authority began to move more rapidly...

...Early in 1954, voters of city and county, urged on by the press and by an impressive body of civic tub-thumpers, approved a plan for a Metropolitan St...

...Louis Steps Up Plans to Deodorize Its Atmosphere By William K. Wyant Jr...

...in all fairness, some ought to get hurt morn than others...

...Those who watched election-year maneuverings of insecure legislators are inclined toward the latter view, especially since it is clear that the demerit plan was adopted only after prolonged study and debate...

...Other less-than-crystalline streams are in line for a reduction of their burdens...

...Whether the retention of the basic demerit point system, without monetary penalty, will be as effective is doubted by most observers...