In 1927, ‘dangerous’ Riverside County intersections got stop signs
The 1920s saw a huge uptick in the number of automobiles sold to the American public, along with more miles driven, more trips taken, and of course, more injuries and deaths due to traffic accidents.
It may seem strange to us today, seeing millions of cars on the roads, to think there was a time with few if any traffic controls, but 100 years ago, there were very few mandates for how to operate a motor vehicle.
By 1927, though, the AAA had been lobbying counties throughout California to start posting stop signs at what were termed “dangerous” intersections. San Bernardino, San Diego, and Imperial counties all had done so by then. Now, the AAA reasoned, it was Riverside County’s turn.
Flay Moulton, the AAA representative for Riverside County, lobbied the Board of Supervisors to pass an ordinance mandating stop signs at “dangerous” intersections along Riverside County’s highways. By this time, there had been a large amount of auto-related injuries that were only going to get worse. Although cars from 100 years ago typically operated at much lower speeds than those today, they lacked what we would consider even the most basic safety equipment that we take for granted, such as seat belts, air bags, crumple zones and impact-absorbing bumpers. Therefore, most every instance of a car-to-car collision resulted in some kind of injury.
On May 16, 1927, the board passed the requested ordinance for the entire county. It stipulated several highways along which stop signs would be placed. In all, about a dozen state highways and several county roads were named, although which intersections were deemed “dangerous” wasn’t specified.
The highways included the road from the San Bernardino County line above Riverside to the Imperial County line via the San Gorgonio Pass and Coachella Valley, probably the longest highway in Riverside County at the time. Similarly, the highway connecting Riverside to Temecula via Perris and Elsinore was similarly named. What we today call Gilman Springs Road, Mission Boulevard, Jackrabbit Trail and La Cadena Avenue were also slated to get stop signs.
Naturally, this change was met with some derision by a motoring public that was used to being able to simply go through an intersection without having to stop, switch gears, and delay their trip. One advocate even approached Mayor J. T. Jarvis, of Riverside, with the idea of having rubber stop signs that would spring back after they were run over! Apparently, many of the stop signs, which originally were placed in the middle of the road, were the targets of automobiles, either on purpose or otherwise. Needless to say, that idea did not come to fruition!
With this ordinance,
Riverside County joined many other counties that were implementing safety measures on roads that were becoming increasingly busier with more cars. These measures would eventually be eclipsed by both state and federal mandates, due to the fact that many of the measures differed from county to county, and could be confusing.