(Editor’s note: Sally Costik, curator of the Bradford Landmark Society, submitted this article in conjunction with Street Dreams Car Club’s Autumn Daze Car Show to be held downtown Sunday. It was published in The Bradford Era 100 years ago.)

Or so claimed car manufacturers in January 1924. An article in The Bradford Era put forth the argument — and I have to admit, it’s a convincing one — that operating a motor vehicle will make you smarter. Quoting judges, teachers, motor vehicle officers and even policemen, it stated that “if it were not for a constant trend toward a higher type of mentality among drivers, the number of traffic and highway accidents would be overwhelming.” In 1924, about 1/7 of the country’s population could drive.

It was reasoned that constant practice in steering, stopping, accelerating, turning, backing up and avoiding danger developed a type of judgment which could not be gained in so short a time by any other method.

The article even gives outstanding evidence that general intelligence is rising due to the ability to drive a car.

1) Approximately 1/7 of the entire population in the country has learned the high points about an intricate mechanism which are necessary for its proper operation.

2) An equal number of people know, through experience, an elaborate set of road rules, the drivers of some states being required to read or be taught the fundamentals as well as the details of the motor vehicle law.

3) 63,560 service stations and repair shops are training thousands of young men to become skilled workmen on a wide variety of cars, the most standardized types of which are not regarded as being completely mastered by anyone.

4) Complexity of traffic regulation, in addition to the radical increase in the complications and demands of traffic itself, has forced millions who drive cars to learn to adjust themselves at a moment’s notice to varying conditions, customs, laws and regulation.

5) Virtually one half of the population is benefiting through the convenience of traveling as offered by the motor car. The exchange of ideas, customs and points of view has reached a new height due to the popularity of the automobile. The effect is recorded in the broadening of the average man’s point of view.

6) More is learned about America’s topography, geography, industry, customs and climates, by means of the automobile, than is taught in the schools of the country.

7) Motorists have been forced to absorb the details of the mechanisms they operate and many thousands of people who are not naturally of a mechanical turn of mind are finding themselves developing their mentality to a point where they comprehend the most intricate and modern theories and practices in engineering.

8) The country has been flooded with educational materials covering the design, construction, and care of the automobile. At no other time in the world’s history has engineering and mechanics been brought so close to home.

9) Each of the 253,104 employees of the motor vehicle manufacturing industry has the advantage of the most modern methods of production to spur him on to more efficient uses of his abilities and to broaden his interest in invention.

And if these nine reasons weren’t enough, claimed the article, there are other, less evident but just as important, effects of driving a car.

“The greatest advantage of the automobile to pure intelligence, however, is its value in developing keener senses and sharpening the wits. It has been frequently noted by psychologists that automobile drivers rapidly acquire a sort of sixth sense which is nothing more or less than a higher development of the five senses.

“One physician has urged drivers to exercise the eyeball as a means of assuring safety through keener vision which is just another evidence that the automobile, in developing the physiological functions of the average person, automatically strengthens the foundations for a stronger mentality.

“It has already been recognized that until one has driven a car, or been privileged to know intimately the demands placed upon the driver of a motor vehicle, conceptions of distance, speed, acceleration and deceleration are not properly developed.”

And finally, the article sums it up” “In this way, the automobile is believed to be making a valuable contribution to posterity at this time when the stupendous problems of the times call for the highest possible type of intelligence.”