ROAD FATALITIES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 166, 13 June 1940, Page 6

ROAD FATALITIES.

The Minister for Transport has again forcibly drawn the cbuiitry’s attention to the appalling economic loss entailed in road fatalities. The toll in May was 16 deaths and 300 people injured. Basing the valuation of a human life on the statistical figure of £2OOO, and taking £SO as the average cost of injury cases, motor accidents involved the country in an economic loss of £50,000 last month. Such is the tragic story that continues in spite of an energetic Department’s activities to reduce the appalling loss. The Minister’s injunction not to speed-—excessively . fast travelling is a major cause of accidents —so that our resources may be preserved is timely, and his appeal to patriotism is not at all far fetched but sensible. Road fatalities have given the British Government cause for anxiety. With the' black-out regulations operating the loss of life in the past nine months has been gravely high. In September .1130 people were killed in Britain, 919 in October, 926 in November, 1155 in December (the worst figure ever recorded), 619 in January, 416 in February (when snowbound roads and severe winter weather curtailed motoring) and 457 in March. These last-named figures showed a comparative increase of 39 on the return for March, 1939, but were a very considerable improvement on the earlier statistics. The loss of life from September to December aroused the authorities to action, and it is hoped that a reduced speed limit during the black-out and a greater degree of experience on the part of both drivers and pedestrians are now producing a salutary effect. Another factor tending towards a lower accident rate is that fewer cars are being licensed in comparison with 1939. Britain has long had this appalling record _ of deaths from road fatalities which, in spite of regulations, education of drivers and pedestrians, and other corrective means, persists, with the added difficulties of war increasing the toll.