Manawatu Evening Standard. MONDAY, JULY 26, 1937. ROAD SAFETY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 201, 26 July 1937, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. MONDAY, JULY 26, 1937. ROAD SAFETY.

The problem of road safety is still a matter of the greatest public concern. In spite of educational campaigns accidents persist, and in Sydney last week the Traffic Superintendent described the car and »road mishaps for the six months ended on -j une 30 as alarming, a word which is by no means unfamiliar. In this Dominion it is satisfactory to know that since the Road Safety Campaign commenced in September last the death rate from road accidents at June 30 had decreased by 20 per cent., while motor traffic had increased by 14 per cent. In other words, based on previous records, 40 lives had been saved. Between March 15 and the end of June no less than 872 accidents were reported, and the Commissioner of Transport, in giving details to the Road Safety Council last week, stated that the saving of life had related to vehicles, the situation in respect to pedestrians and cyclists being “as unsatisfactory as ever.” These two classes were involved in 438 accidents in a period of three and a-half months, 17 pedestrians being killed and 225 injured, while seven cyclists lost their lives and 211 were injured. The average number of accidents per month is no less than 350, so that in spite of what the Road Safety Council is doing—and it will be admitted that its contribution towards preventing unnecessary loss of life has been A'aluable —the record is still deplorable, to use the word of the Minister of Transport when surveying the figures two months ago. It could not. however, be expected that an educational campaign and other measures would immediately arrest to a considerable extent the loss of life from road accidents ; the process can. only be a lengthy one with drivers recognising the rules which are as much for their own personal safety as for that of others using the "highways, and pedestrians taking sensible precautions.

Sydney’s figures, which show 14 fewer deaths but 925'more injured when compared with the similar period in 1936, ore attributed in the main to excessive speed which has followed the introduction of high-powered vehicles. The road safety campaign there has not produced the results hoped for; the same is true of the United States, where the statistics for the first quarter of this year showed an increase of 1700 fatalities over the same period last year. In Great Britain there has been a vital awakening to the staggering loss of life from road accidents, and official figures show that the number killed and injured per 1000 vehicles, which rose from 94 in 1931 to 99 in 1934, fell to 88 in 1935 and to 85 last year. The public conscience there has been deeply stirred by a vigorous de-

partment, which has instituted many kinds of safety devices and educational measures lor all who use the road, whether pedestrians or drivers. It has been well said that the best form of road safety lies in the careful driver, for although pedestrians, as Sir Philip Game has pointed out in regard to London traffic, are often at fault, still the chief onus must lie with the person responsible for the swiftly-travelling vehicle. Excessive speed is held to have caused 80 per cent, of Sydney’s accidents in the past six months, and in America the Accident Prevention Conference after studying 36,075 motor fatalities in 1936 came to a similar conclusion. The latest statistics show that there is a great deal of work for the Road Safety Council to do in this country, so that a problem which gravely concerns every member of the community will be solved to the extent that the toll of the road will be reduced to the barest minimum possible.