MOTOR FATALITIES.

Hokitika Guardian, 7 May 1924, Page 4

MOTOR FATALITIES.

AMERICAN FIGURES.

NEW YORK, March A

The death rate from automobile accidents is oning up steadily and alarming!' i-i-eonling to figmes made tadlie v esterd.iy. While I'si .vent the rate increased 13 fee cent over 19-2. the rale fer January, .1921, was more than 17 per rent, higher than for January, 1923, indicating that while 1923 set a new high leovd for automobile killings tliis year the figures will pro.

. ably be surpassed. The figures are from The latest statistical bulletin of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, based on the experience of its 10.000.000 industrial policy holders in this country and Canada. 'lhe publication further stales that, tin- l.revions estimate ol Io.OUO automobile fatalities in the l idled States in 1923 was perhaps too conservative as the figure is nunc likely to he 10,000.

"But even t!u* above figures do uni •i' ll the full stur.v of tin* doutli toll in autoiiKihilo accidents,” says Dr. Bonis I. Dublin, statistician of the -Metropolitan. “for they do not include ■ II of the deaths that occur from the operation of motor vehicles. As the result of a Peculiar agieement union" statisticians those fatalities vliieli arise from collisions hetween automobiles and railroad trains or trolley ears are classified as due to railroad and trolley fatalities rather than as automobile casualties. “This method of olassilieation was first, adopted years sure and was intended to preserve the completeness ol our railroad necident statistics. It i-. nevertheless, iin’TDid iinafc that this method does not provide for the inclusion among automobile lataliiios < I many deaths, which not only arise from the operation of autoniohiles. but which, in a great majority of the cases are the limit of the persons (hiving the vehicles. "This is ebciou-dy true of grade trussing accidents; for the movements of railroad trains and trolley ears are restricted to the tracks on which ihey run. and the burden of responsibility to keep out of harm’s way rests upon the driver of the automobile. Deaths in such collisions, if added to those charged to automobile accidents, would brill" about a very considerable increase ill the death rates published each year I for the latter. ] “Among the industrial policy holders of the Metropolitan Bile Insurance' Company, for example, in 102.1, there were 10-5 fatalities in collisions between auunnobik's and .railrow! trains and G 3 deaths in accidents involving automobiles and street ears. | Tf these deaths had been added to d 221*2 which were actually charged to automobile accidents, the death rate would have been raised about 8 per (cut. .Such an increase, if it he added to the figure for the Muted States quoted above, would raise the total number of autoniohiles fatalities in 1023 to more than 17,000.”