SPEED CHART.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 290, 7 December 1937, Page 20

SPEED CHART.

ENGLISH SUGGESTION. PACE ON MAIN ROADS. WOULD CURB RECKLESSNESS. One of the problems facing those working for greater safety on highways is that the greatest number and the worst accidents, according to data, happen on the best and widest of roads, a fact that points to speed being the contributing cause of most accidents. The imposing of speed limits has been tried in some countries without marked success.

In Great Britajn there are practically as many fatal accidents on the road to-day as there were two or three years back, despite the fact that that country has a 30 m.p.h. speed limit in builtup areas and no fewer than 210 motor acts and regulations (comprising 1175 sections and 4518 sub-sections), plus thousands of road signs. As all these methods have failed to bring about any great improvement on the roads of the United Kingdom, which carry more automobiles per mile of road than in any other country in the world, it appears obvious that other fundamentals are accountable for the toll of the road. Impatient, careless and reckless drivers are the major causes, with the lastnamed the worst offenders and the most difficult to bring to book. Basically, what is needed is the development of a sense of responsibility and good road manners. It has been suggested that probably one of the surest means of attaining this end and reducing careless and reckless driving would be to attach to every speedometer an automatic speed recording device, similar to those used on some railway engines. An instrument adapted to this purpose would be as reliable as a speedometer and could be sealed against tampering.

There would always be on record evidence of the speed at which the vehicle had been operated. Such an instrument would not interfere with the speed of the automobile (as does a mechanical governor) in case of emergency or when the driver decided it was safe to travel at high speed, but should a collision happen at an intersection or a head-on collision occur on the highway, a chart would provide unimpeachable evidence of the respective speeds of the vehicles involved at the moment of the accident. In most cases such an instrument would also fix the responsibility for the smash or collision.

At the present time there is a definite lack of reliable and definite evidence in most traffic accidents, and on that account, many reckless drivers escape their responsibility. The psychological effect of having on one's automobile an automatic speed recording device which included a tell-tale chart, it is believed, would put a curb on recklessness, go far towards ensuring safer and more courteous driving, and bring about a considerable reduction in avoidable traffic accidents.