CONTROL OF DRIVERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23055, 4 December 1936, Page 7

CONTROL OF DRIVERS

STRINGENT RULES SUGGESTED A PHYSICAL EXAMINATION Careful American estimates indicate that 15 per cent, of the drivers cause nearly 100 per cent, of the accidents. Among them are the speed maniacs, the wilfully reckless drivers, the habitually drunken drivers, the psychopaths, the physical defectives, the juvenile irresponsibles, and the automotive morons. The only effective way to handle such menaces is to place them off the highways, and here the States have failed almost completely. Four States impose no restrictions whatever upon the driver. Eight others require only that non-commercial operators shall have attained a certain age, as low as 14. Of the remaining 36 that make drivers procure licences, 12 grant them on mere application, and of the 24 States that demand driving tests no one imposes a sense-making examination. Motor vehicle commissioners everywhere would probably agree that the granting of licences should start with: (a) A periodical physical and medical examination to weed out the unmistakable defectives; (b) a test to determine the candidate's skill in handling an automobile undei the changing conditions of the road, rather than his mere ability to make perfunctory manoeuvres under favourable circumstances; (c) real teeth in the law and strict enforcement—for the stiffest test can never be more than a check on the driver's potential ability DEATH RATE DROPS The best examples of enforcement are not to be found on the open road, which simply cannot be patrolled with the present small State police forces, but in cities. Prize example No. 1 is Evanston, Illinois. With a motor car death rate of 42 per 100,000 and a per capita property damage cost of nearly £3, Evanston in 1928 was considered by insurance companies to be a leading danger spot. Early in 1929 the Evanston Traffic Bureau cama into being under the direction of Franklin M. Kreml. By 1935 the death rate had dropped to 2.9 per 100,000, the per capita cost of accidents had fallen to 8.6, motorists were saving £20,000 in insurance premiums, and Evanston, for the third time, won the National Safety Council's award for being the safest city in the land. The traffic bureau had a two-gun attack: Strict enforcement of the law, and the work of the subsidiary investigation squad. There were no more arguments with the traffic police. Everyone caught violating any part of the motor code was at once taken to a traffic court. Penalties were inflicted promptly and impartially—and quickly the word went round that " you can't get away with it any more." The investigation squad went to work with camera and tape measure the instant an accident was reported. Dossiers were filed—but not forgotten. They

were used repeatedly to check against drivers and t'. chart principal danger spots. METHOD CAN BE WORKED That the method can be made to work elsewhere is shown by the fact that Syracuse, New York, another danger spot, brought Lieutenant Kreml from Evanston to coach its police, and last month won the council's award as the safest city irt its population group. Milwaukee and Providence have also proved that the driver can be kept somewhat in line. In the end, the efforts of the police are heavily dependent on an aroused public opinion. Fortunately there is evidence that the public opinion is indeed becoming aroused. Witness the fact that, in the face of a 9 per cent, increase in traffic, all automobile fatalities for the first five months of the year showed a 3.5 _>er cent, decrease. Public opinion can exercise also in highway administration, always sorely beset by politics. Money can be spent for safe roads rather than for the "political byways" now so often built. "If it were possible," says an American traffic expert, "to apply everything we know about traffic control, we could eliminate 98 per cent, of all accidents."