"SAFETY WEEK" BRITAIN'S CAMPAIGN

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 125, 29 May 1930, Page 22

"SAFETY WEEK"

BRITAIN'S CAMPAIGN

ACCIDENTS AVOIDABLE

-tjast week in Britain was to be "National Safety Week,): devoted .to propaganda in the cause of reducing accidents., It'was arranged by the. National Safety Council, o£ which Lord Brentford is the president, and had 'the support of the Home Office, the Transport Ministry, and other Government Departments, and about thirty organisations, including the new Pedestrians' Association. On- -Wednesday, 21st May, the /Duke, ot York opened a congress at Liverpool, and in a score of ways the importance of takne care in the factory, on the roads, and |in the home was to.be kept before the PUThe°'test of the movement was-the fact that last year 7000 people ™re ; killedon the roads, and rather more than that number in industrial and other "ccjdent* while : 1,000,000 were injured, sajs tne "Manchester Guardian." Statistics prepared by the council chow that aiii improvement has been most marked in those districts where the educational work ot the council is most active. _ ' Manchester, where there is no saiet}first committee, comes fitty-second on the list of- cities and towns arranged so as to show the rate of increase or decrease ot accidents. In 1929 the percentage increase in the number of persons killed and injured: in' Manchester as <»™Pa.™ Wlth 1926 was 55, and as compared with ia^» «JThe average rate of increase for the whole of Great Britain in the number of persons killed and injured in street accidents in 1929, as compared with 1926, was 33 per cent., and as compared with last year 4 of Safety Week was heartily, commended by Lord Brentford and Mr. Herbert Morrison, the Minister of Transport. "In spite of all the measures that are taken," Mr. Clynes, the Home Secretary, wrote, "the number of accidents still remains at an alarmingly high level. In the course-of'an average week some 300 persons are killed and upwards of 20,000 are injured in various forms of accidents, and the tragedy of it is that the majority of these accidents are avoidable." The satisfactory feature noted by Lord Brentford was that the rate of increase of accidents on the roads has been slowed down, and the number of children killed ou the roads was not-now increasing. He stressed the human^factor of carelessness as an important one in all forms of accidents. A man," he said, "has no right to indulge in the luxury of having an- accident." It was part of the propaganda of Safety Week to urge motorists to play the game, and this would be, perhaps, still more necessary when the speed limit had been abolished. He appealed to the motorists, who would be pouring out. on the roads at Easter, to "remember tike pedestrian."

HIGHWAY SAFETY CODE.

Mr.i Morrison announced that wheu the Road Tr.affic Bill comes into force next year the Ministry of Transport will issue a highway safety code, which, although not a statutory code, would have a great deal of moral and Parliamentary authority behind it. He wanted not only a stabilisation ; but a rapid reduction of accidents. The rate of accidents among children showed a more hopeful position than among adults, and this he explained as the result of the excellent instruction now given in the schools. But accidents as a whole still showed a tendency to rise. His own view was that the abolition of the speed limit by the Road Traffic Bill would make no difference, because it had been abolished by disuse for years past. He doubted whether the average speed of motorists would be greater than before. Penalties, however1, would be made more severe, and he hoped that the Magistrates would enforce them. He'suggested that every local authority should keep a map of its district showing the places where accidents happened, to serve as a guide in traffic regulation. The exits and entrances to important buildings needed greater attention from the local authorities in dealing with building schemes. Something might be done in London by making subways more attractive. People1 did riot like the trouble of going down steps, and it might be possible to provide escalators. He advocated the standardisation of street lighting in London, pointing to the extraordinary variety of lighting iv the difi'erent. districts. >