Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 158, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 July 1916 — Automobile Licenses Pay 90 Per Cent of Road Cost. [ARTICLE]

Automobile Licenses Pay 90 Per Cent of Road Cost.

Ninety per cent of the registration and license fees paid in 1915 by automobilists to the states, or $16,213,387, was spent for the building and maintenance of county and state roads, according to a compilation just published by the office of public roads, U. S. Dept, of Agriculture. In all 2,445,664 motor vehicles were registered in that year and their owners paid a total of $18,245,713 for registration and drivers’ and dealers’ licenses. This is an increase of $5,863,760 over 1914, and an increase of 734,325 in the number of vehicles registered. Auto mobile fees now defray nearly 7 per cent of the total amount spent on rural road and bridge building, whereas in 1906 the income from this source was less than three-tenths of 1 per cent of the total expenditure. The growth of the voMme of fees and registrations is noted by the fact that in 1901 New York, the first state to require fees, collected only $954. In 1906 only 48,000 cars were registered throughout the entire U. S. By 1915, however, the number had jumped to ‘ the figure given, so that there is slightly more than one motor car registered for each of the 2,376,000 miles of road outside of the incorporated towns and cities.