ROAD SAFETY

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 65, 17 March 1934, Page 26

ROAD SAFETY

THE FIRST STEP

FUTILITY OF LAW

A writer to "The Motor" contributes an interesting article to the campaign in Britain to secure greater safety on the roads. Both in Britain and America, and, indeed, in most other countries where there is much motor traffic, the urgent need of some action to overcome the growing toll on human life and limb is being more and more recognised, and everything which in any way helps to elucidate the problem must be welcome. The writer says:-. -";;■ .■ . -: i The subject of traffic accidents has been much discussed of late, and probably in 1934 we may see various attempts made to deal with a matter which has been neglected for many years. Very little will be accomplished, however, if. the would-be reformers seek to adopt panic measures. The position now is much the same

as it was', seven years ago, when accident statistics were" placed on. a basis which, allows of exact comparison with today. ' Tha latest available' _ figures show, that during tho first" half of 1933 accidents" have "slightly increased. Traffic, of - all forms increased at •' a much, 'greater rate, and-thero-ex-ists-'a-very close relationship between accidents and Volume of traffic.' Indeed, it is well established that accidents will tend to, grow with increased traffic unless we get right down to the rooteof the'matter. In r effect, however,' the situation has not altered materially in recent years. TaTcen in relation'to the total number of'• vehicles in'uso there has been, on the whole, a fairly steady ratio of accidents per 1000 vehicles muse. Much the same state- "of affairs prevails in other countries; and in no place has a solution been found to the complex problem of making the roads safer. At the outset we should realiso from our own experience that traffic accidents arise from hundreds of causes, and that there. may be thousands of different combinations of these causes, in bewildering * degrees o£ , variation. The Ministry of Transport Accident Report'contains 132 causes, and this is but a preliminary survey. Thus we can rule out the idea that by a stroke of the pen, or by some new legislation, road ■ accidents will cease, or oven rapidly diminish. It. is only by expert and painstaking effort along many practical lines, that we can hope sensibly to increase the safety of the roads. It will come more by scientific effort than, by mere legal procedure. ''We have the general problem of making the movement of millions of traffic units less dangerous. Merely to advise or lecture people to be more careful, or threaten them with increased penalties if they are convicted of carelessness will achieve, very little. We must in a practical way help both pedestrians and drivers to use the roads in a safe manner; and more important still we must- provide them with roads .which can be safely used. That is,- we must give a high degree of automatic safety to the roads and to traffic. "The first great step is to design roads primarily from the safety point of view, to equip them for safety, and control' traffic for safety. %t would be desirable to create and foster a new science—the ' Science of Traffic • Flow, with safety as the' dominant factor. Into this scheme of traffic the. pedestrian and all users of the road must be brought, and new laws must 'be framed to determine their rights and responsibilities, and establish uniform control/ ■■' .- "As far as possible this 'mechanisation' of safe roads, safe equipment, and safe control should be automatic, so that in effect we shall have .traffic flowing efficiently and safely for the very reason that it can hardly do otherwise. This is the only sound and logical way for dealing with the human factor. It is parallel with the peccautions which'are taken with regard to prevention of accident on railways, in mines, and in the use of electricity, gas. and other forms of energy. "The matter is vitally urgent, for if

there are certain basic errors in' our traffic system today which predispose towards accident, then in all probability there, will be still more accidents >as greater volumes of traffic come on our roads. It is to the roads we must first turn in our search for defects and j for remedies. "It is high time that motorists and pedestrians east some of the responsibility for the present state of affairs on the road authorities. If this were done then all classes of road users could go forward in a united demand for roads designed to meet the traffic requirements of today and tomorrow. There is much talk of making pedestrians learn road sense. There' should be more talk of highway authorities learning ijoad sense. I hardly ever make a journey on foot, or by .vehicle without finding amazing instances where the road system or the^ traffic control, or both, create unnecessary dangers for the road user. ' On ' every side are examples of neglect, stupidity, and lack of foresight in the planning of.our highways." He goes on to particularise how the road system in Britain bristles- with traps,'the direct result of the fact that the ways were not designed originally for motors, but have merely developed from a tangle ,of routes, paths, and tracks, rural and urban, down' a long series of years, widened, surfaced, and graded in an effort to meet, present-day needs/ but presenting a mass of dangerous junctions, corners, varying surfaces, varying -widths, 11 sometimes a .footpath, sometimes not, an unplanned, overcrowded jumble that grows yearly worse as road traffic increases. : •