TOLL OF SPEED

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 111, 13 May 1939, Page 15

TOLL OF SPEED

ROAD FATALITIES

WEEKEND FREQUENCY

NIGHT DRIVING

Pointing out that 22 lives had been lost during the last five -weekends, the Minister of Transport . (the Hon. R. Semple) had something to say about the extraordinary frequency of road fatalities lately, in a statement issued last night. He said that more traffic deaths had occurred oh the Saturday and the Sunday than during the five working days of the week. Speed had been responsible for more than half the fatalities. -

. "The high percentage of deaths that occurred at night indicated that the motorists were not altogether appreciating the necessity for using a special technique in night driving," said the Minister. With' the co-operation of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, investigations into night-driving hazards were being carried out by the psychology laboratory of Otago University. Experiments so far conducted indicated several interesting findings. For instance, one of the after-effects of headlight glare, even when it did not seriously decrease the acuity of vision, caused considerable errors in the judgment of the position of objects. The skilled- night driver, knowing this, would avoid dazzling other motorists. and would "give them a wide berth."

For use at the Centennial Exhibition, the Transport Department was obtaining machinery to test night judgment of distance, speed, and colour, night acuity of the eyes after alcohol and fatigue, sensitivity to glare and glare recovery. It was hoped by this means to- throw some, light on a very dark •subject, Night driving was rapidly increasing, and as long as many of its special problems remained unsolved, it was up to all motorists, motor-cyclists, and pedestrians to exercise greater care after sundown.

It was hoped, also, by means of the Exhibition equipment, to test the effect of alcohol on drivers. Liquor had been present in a, number of fatal accidents during the last five weeks. It was not the "dead-drunk" driver who was the major problem., The driver who had a smaller quantity of liquor and who asserted that he was "stone cold sober" or "only just a little merry," was a bigger menace.

A special sub-committee of the Road Safety Council was to meet in Parliament Buildings on Monday to .consider the problem of the intoxicated driver, and" particularly the proposal of the Commissioner of Police that "legislation be prepared to make it an offence for any person while he is in charge of a motor vehicle to take intoxicants and that it also be ; an offence to supply intoxicants to any person while he or she is in charge of an automobile."- ;