Cause of Accidents

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19959, 17 November 1934, Page 10

Cause of Accidents

A LESSON OF THE ROAD

Anyone who drives extensively on the highways of this country sees many accidents on their way to happen. Most of them never reach the logical conclusion of a crash, but inevitably a certain number are completed in collision. If, in any situation, all the elements necessary for an accident are present, except one, the accident does not occur. But if the situation is repeated a sufficient number of times the missing element is sure to appear, and then the accident follows as night the day.

These reflections are the result of fresh observation of automobiles on the road, writes James O. Spearing in the “New York Times” on returning from a motor trip of 3500 miles. He declares that days before he reached the scene of an actual accident he was sure he would do so sooner or later. He had observed many accident situations with only one essential element missing, and he knew that this could no go on forever. In the next situation, or the next, or one after that, circumstances would supply the missing element, and the accident would happen. He was right. It took place in the North Carolina mountains. He says:— There were many curves and hills in the road, and it was only two lanes wide Drivers seeking merely to travel at reasonable speed were continually delayed by labouring trucks and creeping cars whose operators seemed prejudiced against going into second speed on the grades Normal drivers could scarcely be blamed for impatience. It is exasperating to have to slow down to a crawl and follow some vehicular snail around a blind curve or over the crest of a hill. Especially if the thing happens repeatedly during the day, with the hills and curves so close together that one often has to travel miles or minuts bfore he can obtain a clear view for safe passing. The road was not crowded, and there was always a strong temptation

to take a chance and pass the obstructing vehicle on a curve or under the crest of a hill. The odds were in favour of the gamble. At least nine times out of ten, or, perhaps, ninetynine times out of a hundred, the passing driver would meet no car coming around the curve, or over the hill, at the exact moment when it would be too late for him or the other fellow to avoid a head-on collision.

Many drivers took the chance. They took it time after time, and won. All during the day he saw them doing it. He had seen them doing it on previous days. What they were doing was certain to result in an accident if the other car appeared at the right place at the right time. But, the other car didn’t appear. It would, though. It was bound to, if the thing went on long enough And, finally it did.

A large sedan swung out from behind a big truck and speeded up to pass it on the winding, two-lane road. The driver had probably done the same thing numerous times that day. But this time another sedan came around the curve. When the two drivers saw each other it was too late for either of them to stop, and both cars were hemmed in by the truck on one su.e and a mountain wall on the other. Their radiators met with the impact of their combined speed—something between eighty and a hundred miles an hour—and the inevitable accident was completed—several persons killed and injured, two automobiles entirely wrecked.

He comments that it is human to take a chance. He differentiates this class of accident from carelessness. These drivers are not careful; they take a chance; quite literally they are gamblers and sometimes they lose out. Nobody can go on gambling and win for ever. The accident problem is a problem of human behaviour. A driver has to learn to control and restrain himself, and until he masters himself his accident is certainly on the way.