The Press MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1934. Towards Safer Roads

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21087, 12 February 1934, Page 8

The Press MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1934. Towards Safer Roads

The decision of the Ministry for Transport in Great Britain to experiment with such safety devices as special crossing places for pedestrians, enclosed traffic lanes, and cycling tracks by the roadsides shows how deeply the public conscience has been stirred by the steadily rising total of road accidents. The casualty rate for the whole country has lately been estimated at 18 killed a day and 500 injured, or 7000 fatal accidents a year. This estimate is borne out by an official report issued in December last by the Ministry for Transport, and setting out the causes of the fatal road accidents in the first six months of 1933. The report shows that in this period 3025 persons were killed and that of these 1581 were pedestrians, 514 were motor-cyclists, and 520 were pedal cyclists. The analysis of causes, though incomplete, is most interesting. It disposes, for instance, of the idea that excessive speed is the main factor in accidents.

The tables suggest [says the report] that, in the cases where an estimate of speed could be given, a considerable majority of the motor vehicles involved in fatal accidents were proceeding at a speed not exceeding 20 rniles an hour.

The importance of the proposal to establish special crossing places for pedestrians is shown by the fact that, of the 1581 pedestrians killed, 857 were crossing roads. The report deals interestingly with the age factor in death among pedestrians. Children under the age of five years, being usually in the care of older persons, are comparatively seldom victims. The dangerous ages are from five to 10. the period when children learn to go about unaccompanied but lack experience. Thereafter experience and education lead to a decrease, and liability to fatal accidents reaches its lowest point among males between 20 and 30 years and among females between 20 and 40 years. Actual defects in vehicles are shown to be a comparatively unimportant cause of fatal accidents; and apart from this the most important cause contributed by vehicles was dazzling or inadequate headlights. The daily average of accidents is lowest on Sundays and, bank holidays excepted, highest on Saturdays. This analysis has suggested to the Ministry for Transport the need for the mechanical safeguards described in the cable news: but it seems also to suggest that the education of both pedestrians and motorists and a more effective enforcement of the law can do much more to promote safety. Indeed, mechanical safeguards, by inducing a feeling of security, may do harm as well as good unless they are accompanied by a campaign to make motorists and pedestrians more alert and more cautious. The difficulty of enforcing the law as it relates to traffic offences is, of course, notorious. Juries in particular find it difficult to give judgment without making tacit allowance for insurance coverage or the possibility of a civil action following a criminal action. Moreover, some traffic laws and many traffic by-laws are so savage or unreasonable that they defeat their own ends. Heavy penalties are much less important than adequate policing of the roads, since with traffic laws as with other laws certainty of punishment is a much stronger deterrent than severity of punishment.