AI image created by R. Kent Rasmussen
Everyday throughout America, the Overspeeder runs over somebody and "escapes."
That is the way it reads. At present the 'mobile numbers are so small that
ordinary eyes cannot read them, upon a swiftly receding machine, at a distance
of a hundred feet--a distance which the machine has covered before the spectator
can adjust his focus. I think I would amend the law. I would enlarge the
numbers, and make them readable at a hundred yards. For overspeeding--first
offence--I would enlarge the figures again, and make them readable at three
hundred yards--this in place of a fine, and as a warning to pedestrians
to climb a tree.
- "Overspeeding,"
Harper's Weekly, 5 Nov. 1905 (from a
letter to the editor dated 18 Oct. 1905)
I do not own a motor-car but I recommend
them to all my friends and advise them to buy a car--so that they will come
around and take me out in it. Somehow or other, riding over a rough road
in a motor-wagon jolts certain parts of my torso that need to be jolted,
but seldom ever do get jolted, same as when I run up stairs. It's splendid
exercise and limbers up and promotes springiness--of the stair boards.
- quoted in
"Mark
Twain as a Motorist," Motor, May 1906
Used postcard
of Mark Twain advertising Oldsmobile.
