DEATH ON THE ROAD

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 199, 20 May 1936, Page 12

DEATH ON THE ROAD

“Really Terrible Toll” of Motor Accidents FIRM CONTROL NEEDED "There is no answer to the charge that these fatal accidents are due to lack of proper control,” said the Minister of Transport, Hon. R. Semple, when making a strong condemnation of the present high rate of road accidents in the Dominion during his opening speech on the Transport Licensing Amendment Bill in the House of Representatives last night. Mr. Semple indicated that he hoped that the changes which he proposed in the control of transport might provide the means of reducing the toll of the road. “Road accidents are to-day killing the people of New Zealand at the rate of one a day and maiming or them at the rate of 20 a day,” the Minister said. "That means that we are killing our people on the roads at the rate of more than 300 a year. More than that, we are maiming them at tlie rate of between 4000 and 5000 a year. That is a really terrible toll for a country witli a population of just over one and a half million. I submit that what is wrong is that, we have not the means of control over transport that we should have.” There were 303 local bodies tn the Dominion and each one had the right to make its own by-laws to control traffic, the Minister added. There was no system of national control of bylaws at all. There was no means of testing on a national basis the mechanical fitness of vehicles and yet that was a vitally necessary part of the system. There was no doubt that some of the accidents were due to faulty brakes on vehicles. Some of the blame could also be laid to the lack of proper policing of the roads. The present system was stupid and had to stop. "If in one single disaster on any one day in the Dominion we lost 365 lives the whole country would be amazed and astonished,” the Minister added. “It would be our worst national disaster. But we are doing this slowly, day by day. We are doing it by killing one off a day. No one seems to know or care about it except, those relatives or friends who are closely associated with the accident. On the basis of population and considering the relative areas the system covers we have as high a rate of deaths on the road as any country in the world. We cannot eliminate it altogether, it seems, but we can reduce those deaths by some means of control.”