TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19125, 17 September 1925, Page 8

TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS.

There are now nearly 2,000,000 motor driving licenses in Great Britain. In ,1924 there were no fewer than 3631 fatal street accidents and in 3132 of these fatal cases—by far the greater proportion of the total—the vehicles concerned- were mechanically propelled, says the Times. Only 258 fatal accidents were caused by horse-drawn vehicles, and about the same number by ordinary bicycles. In the same period other road accidents—most of which, in all probability, might easily have produced fatal results—numbered 94,584, and again it was the motor vehicles which were the chief sufferers —or offenders. Because they are to-day by far the most numerous class of vehicles that use the roads, this, of course, is bound to be the case. But that fact does not excuse the rate of mortality of which they are the cause, which is far higher than it need be if only drivers as -a body would exercise the most ordinary self-restraint and consideration for others, if not for themselves. It cannot too often or too strongly be said that the great bulk of these road accidents are the direct result of sheer selfishness. Bicyclists, children, pedestrians, and fourfooted animals are no doubt often contributory causes. But the effort to throw the blame on to them is in the great majority of cases a transparently feeble and fallacious kind of defence.* They are, all of them, common objects of the road, and, as such, have to be expected and guarded against. So, too, are other motor vehicles, cross-roads, concealed turnings, and ill the other incidental obstacles which strew the path of the motorist. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the man (or woman) who does not keep the car or lorry or motorbicycle or motor-coach which he is steering sufficiently under control to avoid them, even when they turn up unexpectedly, is driving to the public danger. Bven when the accident caused by his recklessness does not have any fatal result', and, equally; when he drives to the public danger without causing an accident, he is a nuisance and a peril to, all other users of the road, and, if h$ can be caught in the act, he should be ■severely punished.