GRAPHIC NOTINGS

Otago Witness, Issue 3803, 1 February 1927, Page 5

GRAPHIC NOTINGS

By

LENS.

(Specially Wbitten fob the Otago Witness.)

First of all it wants to be emphasised that this article deals with only one thing —the motor car or motor vehicle generally as a possible engine of destruction in (1) the crowded streets of the great city motorised .enough for the risk, and (2) of the pedestrian, and “ him or her alone. In which connection these palpable facts are brought out: (1) That the roadway of a street is unbroken end to end; and (2) That the flanking footpaths really consist of a number—i.e., of so many blocklength footpaths with intersect-; ing roadways between them, a case of wheels and heels, where the wheels are always where they belong, but where the heels must invade their domain every time the pedestrian has to run the gauntlet, kerb to kerb. Get this’ well in; and the rest is easy—to see that from the pedestrian’s standpoint the footpath of the street in a great city to-day, end to end, is with just as many death traps as there are intersections. ’We here in New Zealand, if unacquainted with the position abroad, are apt to view; what we see as a kind of last word, whereas it is only something like a first one. Writing with a knowledge derived from extensive day-to-day reading we can only say of certain parts abroad that life for the pedestrian in the really great city must be on© of constant fear, and for those who are near and dear to him or her one of neverending anxiety. . Motor car accidents are, with the statistical chronicling, generally placed under a number of headings, some blaming the pedestrian as well as the driver; but, as a moment’s reflection will show, this only clouds the issue, which is heel versus wheel and wheel versus heel, kerb to kerb, where the footpath is broken by an intersecting roadway. Observe the sketch I There was a choice between a plan of the kind that engineers like and an eye-catcher pleasing to the artistic mind. A plan would have shown a street crossing with its four corners, and given an idea of what experts abroad see as the only, real solution, if this is to .be full and sufficient, and that is a contiruoi "''''path, by means of an over or under connection as often as there is an intersecting roadway to justify it. But the tortoise “draws,” and a car with a pedestrian on his back is graphic, . and that is why the sketch was made. Heel versus wheel and wheel versus heel is from the pedestrian’s standpoint 75 per cent, of the whole traffic problem.

Turn on the telescope and get the focus! How they see it in England may perhaps

be gathered from this cable, London to New York, November 20 last: “The increasing number of motor car accidents not only in London, but also in the country districts, is putting a serious strain on the hospitals.... It is being said at some of them that operations on hundreds of other patients' are delayed by the motor, accident victims" ; and again from this paragraph: “The highways of South Yorkshire have been provided- with ambul-ance-boxes, brightly painted and marked, at frequent intervals, each being equipped with splints and bandages.” But.for the real thing take the United States, where the experts are for ever ventilating their opinions as to how to deal with the traffic problem. -With the street boundaries side to side a more or less fixed dimension there is the fact that 120,000,000 people have the fecundity of such and the associated one that, with this 'number representing about 24,000,000 homes, there are already. .20,000,000 motor cars and motor vehicles generally in active operation,' and that they are being added to “every day. We haye before us at this moment an American paper in the first rank dated a few weeks back, and there is the fatality list from January 1, and it is, as averaged.. 84 a day. As this might mean about 600 accidents for all sorts carry the figures out on that basis for the year—3o,66o deaths out of, say, 219,000 accidents. The paper speaks of a 10 per cent, increase over 1925, and so to make it graphic imagine this continuous for the next 10 years : — 1927—33,726 deaths with 240,900 accidents.

.1928—37,098 with 264,990. 1929—40,807 with 291,489. -1930—44,887 with 320,637. 1931— with 352,700 1932— with 387,970. .. 1933— 59,743 with 426,767. 1934— with 469,443. 1935— with 516,387. ; 1936— 79,516 with 560,025. Some little time ago a San Francisco paper published a number of pictures showing the signs which it has been thought correct to place at certain street corners in several -selected cities, and one gave a death’s head with a fleshless index finger pointing- to this: “Jay walker, you are mine!” The authorities in America that count are not so much concerned over the jay walker as they are over the way walker, the pedestrian legion, man, woman, and child ; and having tried everything else the suggestion of certain experts is to make the footpath continuous

by either an over or under connection kerb to kerb, the building line at the corner being set. back at an angle to allow of the usual turn. While this would entail some hardship with the aged, there I s the only 100 per cent, solution that can' be named. .JThe motor car is an indispensable utility as well as a; desirable luxury, but this does riot lessen the risk of the broken footpath/-'but on the ■ contrary makes it njore patent. In California they glory in the fact that the motor car runs one to every four of the population, and this is what •• Nadia Lavrova wrote in a Sari Francisco paper, November last: “I happen to know that four Californians will be killed in" a violent way to-day. I happen to know that another four will be killed to-morrow, and again the day after, and again the day after that. Were not one hundred killed in this way last month, and one hundred the month : before?°’ The California Public Safety Conference? does its best to broadcast the fact that almost 1500 .people are killed yearly ori their State’s, streets and ' highways in automobile accidents. If the exact figures for 1925 are wanted, then here they are—l3Bs men, women, and children all crushed to death -in that one year.” The broken footpath ip San Francisco, means a very anxious day for the woman whose .husband is away at work and a pedestrian going and returning, and again whose children are at school, and who hop, skip, and jump in the way of children to reach It and to get back. The exquisite and admittedly necessary motor car, beautiful to look at and most desirable to have, but with wheels that revolve as noiselessly almost as the cat walks, and with a speed that is largely unconscious because of the ease of it! The broken footpath in San Francisco has led to the formation of a Women’s League, with its one cry a demand ..for a sufficient solution of the traffic problem. It has no further use for the hackneyed slogan: “Safety First.” It has inscribed on its banners one that reveals the anxiety of mind of its members: “Safety or Sorrow.” “Better roads,”, yes, but what is in view with that is for the motor car. “Better roads” with the pedestrian included means safety that is assured. The broken footpath in the great city is an inheritance from heel and hoop, for who suspected anything more ? With heels versus wheels and wheels versus heels, motor car, it is destined to become the leading question everywhere when it comes to the great city’s traffic.