ROAD FATALITIES REDUCED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23545, 4 January 1940, Page 6

ROAD FATALITIES REDUCED

Evidence that the road safety campaign of recent years is at last bearing fruit is provided by the fact that fatalities as a result of motor accidents over the Christmas and New Year holidays have been the lowest recorded for 18 years. Up to yesterday only nine deaths occurred throughout the Dominion, compared with 15 during the previous Christmas holiday season and an average of 20 for the preceding eight years. So marked a reduction gives the Minister of Transport, Mr. Semple, legitimate cause for satisfaction. His personal efforts in the interests of safer motoring have been vigorous and unremitting and the people generally have every reason to be grateful to him for his insistence that proper standards of care are necessary to reduce a death rate that has been growing to alarming proportions. Mention must also be made of the co-operation. that the Minister and his department have received from the various motorists' organisations throughout the country. Without their enthusiastic support little could have been accomplished. But the fact that the holiday pei'iod has been comparatively free from road fatalities does not mean the road safety campaign has achieved its ends. Motor accidents will inevitably recur if there is the slightest relaxation of care and vigilance and, as personal negligence is the main contributing factor in the majority of traffic mishaps, there is every reason why there should be a general demand for the highest possible standard of driving care. Mr. Semple, for one, is not likely to overlook the necessity for continued educative effort and for strict observance of the rules of the road and in this it is the duty of every motorist to give complete and effective co-operation. Care is needed whether traffic is heavy or light and care can best be exercised by rigid adherence to a few commonsense injunctions designed for the protection of human life.