ROAD ACCIDENTS

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22109, 3 June 1937, Page 10

ROAD ACCIDENTS

Lack of Education as a Cause INSURANCE ADJUSTER ON NEW REGULATIONS ['THE PRESS Special Service.] AUCKLAND, June 2. Lack of education was adduced as a major cause of the heavy accident toll of the road by Mr R. J. Laird, a well-known Auckland ineurance adjuster, when he spoke at a luncheon of the Auckland Creditmen’s Club. He deplored any attempt to educate by fear, and expressed the opinion that a safety campaign should appeal to the intelligence. He emphasised the difficulties that would be experienced in applying the “vague” provisions of the new 1936 motor regulations. “The accident statistics of the Dominion conclusively prove that motoring is a daily gamble with death, injury, suffering, and financial loss,” Mr Laird said. “Similar conditions obtain in every country where the motor has supplanted the horse-drawn vehicle. It is a war between sanity and insanity to decide whether the motor vehicle is man’s most efficient servant or the juggernaut.” Safety of the Air A simple explanation of safety of other means of transportation, Mr Laird continued, was the sane* control of these vehicles arising from the sound common sense and training of those allowed to drive them, and the equally sound rules and regulations which each and every driver was by law compelled to understand and obey. He instanced the case of marine and air officers, and compared the position with motoring where there were 36,000,000 vehicles, driven by the old, the young, the wise, the foolish, the physically fit, and the physically unfit. All were allowed to drive powerful cars, without proven qualifications or experience of any kind other than elementary knowledge of how to start and steer the vehicle. Interpretation of Rules “After 30 years’ driving, and 17 years advising insurance companies on the legal liabilities of accidents, I am unable to state definitely the interpretation of our motor rules and regulations,” Mr Laird declared. “Twelve months ago, before the introduction of the present 1936 regulations, this "was not so difficult, because all contentious rules, such as the right hand rule, had after years of litigation been finally ruled upon by the Supreme Court. Until these new rules have been determined in a similar fashion, do they legally mean anything? This opens up a field of thought on the unenviable position of. every motorist involved in an accident, wherein liability depends on the legal interpretation of these rules.” The only definite rule governing speed was that no person might drive at such a speed that he could not stop in half the distance of vision of clear road ahead. Where vision was limited there was no doubt as to the meaning of the rule, but he doubted how it could apply to intersections, and to possible dangers materialising in heavy traffic, or from pedestrians, emerging on to a clear roadway ahead. The safe maximum speed allowed by the regulations appeared to be, in the absence of anything more definite, entirely dependent on the personal opinion of the police and traffic officers, or of some Court official whose qualifications were also questionable.