ALARMING FIGURES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 117, 20 May 1939, Page 11

ALARMING FIGURES

ONE DEATH A DAY

CIRCULAR TO MOTORISTS

The executive of the Automobile Association (Wellington) has through its chairman, Mr. E. A. Batt, addressed to each member of the association a direct appeal for co-operation in the endeavour to reduce the extremely serious accident position on the roads of New Zealand.

As a rule the circulars and other communications between the association and its members are sent out. in formal style, but this circular is printed in red and black, with further emphasis in heavy block lettering on the envelope and in a • main heading: "This concerns you!"

"The position revealed by statistics for April and the first part of May is terrible," said Mr. Batt to a "Post" reporter, "and if the association has taken an unusual course to bring the fact before its members that course is justified by the shocking accident rate of one death each day. When the circular was drawn up the successive daily deaths totalled 37,"but since the matter was sent to the.printer that daily death rate has continued, as has been stated by the Minister of Transport.

"When accident figures are quoted emphasis is always placed upon fatalities, but it is to be remembered that the accidents resulting in serious injury and physical and mental misery are still more numerous. The record of the past six or seven weeks is a dreadful one."

The circular calls attention to the fact that 26 of the 37 deaths in a five weeks' period resulted from accidents in which motor vehicles alone were involved; that is, the responsibility for those accidents rested directly upon motorists, since there was no contributory, negligence by others. The reports upon the succession of accidents, moreover, indicated that more than half the accidents occurred after darkness, thus proving that many drivers did not observe the maxim: 'Sundown — slow down.'

"It is a matter of extreme regret that the good records created following the last national effort for the reduction of Occidents should not have been maintained, and I therefore take this opportunity of making a very urgent personal appeal for greater courtesy, tolerance, and the general application of common-sense driving under the conditions prevailing," the appeal continues. "This broadcast appeal must necessarily reach the careful driver as well as the careless driver, but it is directed to both in the interests of all. Therefore, This Does Concern You!"