MOTORISTS AND SPEED.

Southland Times, Issue 20791, 4 June 1929, Page 3

MOTORISTS AND SPEED.

To the Editor.

Sir, —“Grand Ba” in Friday’s paper writes at length ’ regarding motor and road accidents but there are some points which require clearing up. May I remind him that little boys as a rule have a distressing habit of growing up but let us hope they do not become “Grand Pas.” It is quite obvious that he, “Grand Pa”, is neither squashed or over-awed and that he has not really considered what I wrote in my last letter. This horse business. First of all, “Grand Pa” I am not a horseman, I am a motorist. I have it on excellent authority that good time for a six furlong horse race is one minute ten seconds or at a speed of rather over 381 miles an hour which even you must admit, “Grand Pa,” is a bit more than 25. On several occasions I have seen horses pull over to the side of the road on sight of an approaching car while the driver of the horse either woke himself up or finishing reading a par. in the morning paper. When I was a very little boy, the horses I liked did have wheels but I doubt very much whether they race that sort of horse at Derby. “Grand Pa”, you will know, even if Lome is a little out of everyday life. “Grand Pa” also started this slaughtering business, or should I say abattoir? figures will certainly surprise “Grand Pa” as they did me. The rate of death by motor accident in 1927 was at the rate of 100 per million of population. The rate for railway traffic for the same year was 31 per million. Yet “Grand Pa” calls that slaughter! These figures show an increase of 781 per cent, on the year 1921 but that is not taking into account the increase in motor traffic. Death from crushing in 1927 was at the rate of 170 per million but that was from any cause at all and cannot be attributed to motors alone. Extremely large figures are, I know very cumbersome and apt to be meaningless or rather the mind fails to grasp the significance of them. In 1927 trains travelled 10,723,864 miles. The number of motor vehicles for the same year was 156,234. Assuming each motor vehicle to run on an average 2000 miles per year, the distance travelled Is 312,468,000 miles or about twenty-nine times the distance run by trains. Yet the deaths attributed to motor vehicles are only three times as great as those attributed to railway traffic. I think that is a side to the question that is frequently overlooked. By no means, however, am I suggesting that we should rest on our oars, so to speak, and do nothing to ameliorate the position. I only strive to show how far out “Grand Pa” is when he speaks of “dreadful slaughter.” It is not really clever of “Grand. Pa” to suggest that every motor vehicle in New Zealand is responsible for “a death, serious or minor injury to our fellow creature.” I suppose he means that on an average each person in New Zealand has been injured by a motor vehicle at least once. I was hammering a tack into the running board of a car the other day when I missed the tack and struck my thumb. What would you call that, “Grand Pa”—a motor accident or just bad driving? “Grand Pa” like many other people, does not think. How in the name of goodness can a road be called clear when one cannot see other traffic approaching? “Grand Pa” asks me to take his advice. Listen. “Mr Scott says it doesn’t matter how fast a man drives when the road is straight and clear. This is a very sad admission and one calculated to bring about disaster fo someone for while indulging in this running of the gauntlet so to speak, he knows not who may, like himself, with a clear vision, rush out from a side road or street he never knew about or heard of. If he will take ‘Grand Pa’s’ advice he will discontinue this silly and unfair practice of ca’-cannie.” Really, "Grand Pa!”—l am, etc., C. A. SCOTT.