Action on road-toll ‘epidemic’ urged

Press, 14 March 1978, Page 2

Action on road-toll ‘epidemic’ urged

The Government wast urged yesterday to imple-1 i ment urgent measures to re- j duce the road accident toll,; I .which it was suggested had < ! reached “epidemic” proporItions. .< A meeting of (he in-Is Istitutions committee of the; .North Canterbury Hospital 1 i Board gave its unanimous!) approval to a sterne r line’s ; I being taken on road-accident; problem- which it said wash one of the country’s three]; [major health problems. j The Parliamentary Select ; Committee on Research into I ■ . Road Safety vas charged 1 (with the task of treating thell [matter with the ‘‘utmost ur-i I gency” so that effective < legislation can be imple- ; imented. I’ The staff of the Christ-; church Hospita’’s accident land emergenc’ department.; .had already had to be. extended to the limit to deal with increases in road acci-’i .dents on Thursday, Friday.!l

and Saturday evenings and* this was an indication of just how serious the prob-, tern was becoming, said Mrs! C. B. Cartwright. “We have in our midst ai community health problem,”ishe said. “We have an; ■ epidemic as serious as any l 'infectious disease with a ■death rate last year of two persons a day." If this were an infective epidemic which left hundreds of people dead or disabled for life there would be :a public outcry to inIvestigate the causes and prevent the spread of the condition. “But little seems to be j hapnening to stop the spread of this ‘epidemic’,” Mrs Cartwright said. Politicians must accept i their responsibilities, she said. "Hospital boards cat neither make the laws nor implement them. We can only ■pick up the price tag and*

[shake our heads at the ever-’ increasing costs and long; waiting lists in our hospi-i itals. We must aim the arrow* * requesting action at the very [ heart of our legislative ! machine,” Mrs Cartwright i said.' The board’s medical super-intendent-in-chief (Dr L. McH. Berry) said that it was correct to compare the roadaccident toll to an “epidemic” but even though there were 700 deaths on the roads last year the degree of public complacency gave rise to a double standard which seemed hard to understand. Mrs Cartwright said that more severe legislation on road-safety overseas was reducing the road-accident toll. “We appear to be blind to this and we must now urge for much stronger laws in this country to achieve the same result as overseas,” ishe said.