RECKLESS DRIVING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19314, 15 October 1932, Page 12

RECKLESS DRIVING

CHECK-UP BY RAILWAYS. The American Railway Association requested sixty-five railway companies operating in 47 States to observe the behaviour of motorists at crossings. In consequence, observations were made at 282 crossings, at which all types of protection were represented. During an eight-hour period 318,371 motor vehicles passed over the crossings, and of this number 14 per cent, were driven by persons “definitely reckless’’ while the drivers of 12 per cent, were “on the borderline between care and lack of care.”

A similar survey reported by the New York Central Railroad yielded results substantially agreeing witli these announced by the American Railway Association. At sixty-one crossings in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ontario, observers for the Central Railroad counted 10,462 reckless drivers in a ten-hour period. This number represents 13 per cent, of the motor vehicles counted at the crossings. And from its limited survey, the railroad authorities estimate that in a similar ten-hour period 1,582,000 motor vehicles are driven recklessly over the 13,000 crossings on the company’s lines, which means just that many possible accidents of the most destructive kind.