The Timaru Herald THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1933. MAKING THE ROADS SAFER.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19672, 14 December 1933, Page 8

The Timaru Herald THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1933. MAKING THE ROADS SAFER.

Holiday times will bring -with, them dangers on the roads involving not only the speed maniac and the over-careless pedestrian, but other users of the roads who take every reasonable precaution to observe the rules of the highway. No one can regard with complacency the increasing number of street and road accidents. The figures, particularly those relating to Britain, have aroused in the minds of the public great concern, and as in all such problems, there is a danger of panic, or as Sir William Morris puts it “the jumping to conclusions without due reflection; the assumption that responsibility rests with one class; and the resulting demand for restrictive laws.” In the Homeland, since the publication of the statistics of London street accidents, there have been panic demands for the reimposition of the speed limit and more deterrent punishment for every minor and major transgression against the Road Traffic Act. Motorists as a class are more governed by compulsory enactments than any other part of the community. To reimpose the speed limit generally would be to stop progress, and perhaps injure an industry vital to Britain specially now. The reason for this call for caution is that the causes of accidents are numerous and do not always originate with the motorist. Leading English authorities contend that a general speed limit would have little or no effect either upon driving or upon accidents. The full figures for the years since the speed limit was abolished bear this out. In 1921, with a speed limit, there were 4,886, and in 1930 there were 7.305. In 1931, the first year of the abolition of the speed limit, the total dropped to 6,691. In 1932, the second year of the no-speed limit, the total dropped further to 6,667. Everything is relative. To obtain a true perspective of road accidents one must compare fatalities with the number of vehicles on the road and the mileage run. In 1918, with 114,000 motors on the road, the fatalities were 1,540. The average mileage per annum was then 4,000. There was one fatality for every 74 cars on the road and one for every 296,104 miles run. In 1923, when there were 2,533 fatalities, motors numbered 651,000, with an average mileage per annum of 7,000. There was one fatality per 257 vehicles and one per 1,799,052 miles run. In 1928 there were 6,138 fatalities and 1,998,384 motors, running an average of 10,000 miles a year—one fatality per 325 vehicles and one per 3,255,757 miles run.

Careful reflection will compel the conclusion that the great majority of motorists are not careless. If we take what has been called the “Black Tear” of 1930, when there were 7,300 street accidents, we discover that the motors on the roads numbered 2,141,230. If we figure the average yearly mileage per vehicle as only that of 192S — 10,000 ; but it was nearer 12,000, the percentage is one fatality for every 293 vehicles and every 2,933,200 miles run. Ho not these figures prove that motors are being more carefully driven? But the cost of road transport in human life is all too great and remedies must be sought. Leading English motorists suggest education and experiment, not panic law and regulations, to bring about a reduction. An official research, now operating in England, will state the causes exactly early in the new year. But has not the time come for talk by everybody to stop, and action to begin on the lines of education and experiment. The British Government takes £64,000,000 from motorists every year, and Sir William asks: Why not use an adequate grant of this money to educate the public in safety? Let it be done by newspaper, poster, postal slogan—in fact, be drafted on the lines of the highly successful "Buy British" campaign, with the Highway Code as the foundation of it. Use the mobile police in the way they were intended to be used—as an educational force, not a penal one—■ and organise more of them to teach motorist and walker correct ways. Edinburgh has shown the way—education, not coercion for motorist and walker. Experiment with thoughtful ideas for everyone's safety. The police know the fatal traffic spots everywhere; they are nearly all in populous places. It is urged, and urged pertinently, that if experiments save lives and limbs, then the scope of new systems of control canid be extended. The best-behaved motorists, and manufacturers, too, strongly urge that the Minister of Transport (if he has not got it) and the police should be given j power to plan thoughtful expert- j ments, and then, with the cooperation of all classes of com monsense British people, Britain would lead the world in organised street safety on sane lines without any new laws, regulations or penal code, and less populous countries would quickly adopt liritain's successful experiment.