ROAD ACCIDENTS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17235, 15 April 1930, Page 7

ROAD ACCIDENTS

NEW ZEALAND FIGURES THE MOTOR-CYCLE’S SHARE Loss of life bv accident is one of the things that are being thoroughly investigated by organisations in practically every country of the world, particularly in America. People are gradually waking up to the fact that a community may lose in a comparatively small number of years more lives from accidental causes than it lost in the whole of the Great War. Growing consciousness of this fact is making the community more alive every clay to the need for a determined effort to track down the causes of accidents, and to eliminate them. New Zealand is more fortunate than Great Britain, America, and most other countries, inasmuch as the numbre of fatal accidents caused through motor vehicles does not seem, over the last few years, to be greatly on the increase. The numbers of people in New Zealand so billed last year was 108. From the monthly figures it is shown that there is a definite trend neither one way nor the other, and that last year’s monthly average (0) is the average, also, over the few additional months given ar either end of last year’s sequence. The figures show what an erratic quantity the motor accident fatality rate is. All types of motor accidents are included in these figures. Pedestrians being struck by motor cars or motor cycles, motor cars colliding with each other or with motor cycles, any form of motor vehicle whatever coming to grief by itself, either through skidding, going over a bank, or hitting an obstruction —all these cases are covered by the returns. 'One fact stands out, however, when a survey is made of the nature of these accidents. This is the increase in the number of fatal mishaps where motor cyclists were concerned. Whereas motor cyclists were rarely involved in fatal accidents at the beginning of the last year, they arc now well to the fore, and show indications of playing an even greater part in making up the totals. Apart from mishaps where death for one or more has been the result, the number and frequency of really serious, but* non-fatal, motor cycle accidents is stated to be increasing from month to month. —Dominion.