CAUSES OF ACCIDENTS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 157, 31 March 1937, Page 10

CAUSES OF ACCIDENTS

Transport Department Collects Data

By the compilation of statistics the Transport Department hopes to be able to discover the reasons for many of the accidents which happen in New Zealand, and to eliminate where possible the danger points. Co-operation is being given by the Police Department, which has been issued with specially prepared forms for tilling in when accidents are reported to it. T'bc scheme was initiated on March 15, and the first four returns have now reached the Transport. It is considered significant that all four accidents happened at night. Two of the injured persons were passengers in motor-cars, and two were pedestrians, one of whom was in a drunken condition. Practically every factor in an accident is covered in the form, which has only to be marked like a tabulated questionnaire. One return shows that the accident occurred on an easy grade and at an approach to a bridge nt dusk. The passenger in the motor-car received minor injuries when the vehicle skidded on loose metal and capsized into a stream. Another form reveals that the passenger in the car was slightly injured •when the car struck loose metal and went off the road on an easy grade. A third form shows that a pedestrian, who was intoxicated, walked out from a footpath into a motor-van just as it was about to pass him. He was not badly hurt. The final return shows that a pedestrian was seriously injured when a vehicle, straightening after turning a bend, struck him as he was walking in the same direction. In this case the headlights of the car were badly focused.