Design or Accident
Page 58
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BAD as it is now, the road-accident problem was far more serious 25 years ago. There were 7,305 road deaths, including 1,433 children in 1930, as against the corresponding figures of 4,706 and 786 for 1952. Per 10,000 mechanically propelled vehicles, the number of deaths was 32 in 1930, 22.5 in 1938, and 9.6 in 1952. There is evidence, therefore, that skill and planning can overcome many of the difficulties.
It might not be a bad thing if a new approach were made on the subject of propaganda for road safety, which at times has overreached itself. Too much piling of horror upon horror, too many references to the "mounting toll of accidents," too many thundering indictments of the "craze for speed" and the "age of materialism," have the ultimate effect of making the road user a fatalist. The time may soon be reached when every other person is likely to become a casualty once in a lifetime, and at this stage one can only hope to be numbered among the lucky half of the population.
What has been almost forgotten is that the problem of road accidents is not one problem, but several. A useful reminder was given the other day by Dr. W. H. Glanville, director ofroad research of -the Department• of Scientific and Industrial Research. He quoted figures to show that the chance of being killed is only twice as great in a car as in a train, but seven times as great in the air, 30 times on a bicycle, and 80 times on a motorcycle. One figure each for air and rail was enough for the purpose of Dr. Glanville's comparison, but he needed three separate figures to cover road users, and even then had to ignore the pedestrian.
Slipping on Orange Peel
In. a Parliamentary reply a little time ago, Mr. Hugh Molson, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, stated that "all accidents on pavements and footpaths which form part of a public highway are included" in road accident figures. In spite of this, .1 cannot think that the pedestrian who trips over the kerb or slips on a piece of orange peel finds a place in the official statistics. He certainly does not appear in "Road Accidents, 1952," the Ministry's most recent full-scale publication on the subject, although pedestrians were involved in 46,758 out of 171,757 road accidents resulting in personal injury or death.
Animals were involved in a further 2,521 accidents, so that in fact nearly a third of all road accidents were not solely concerned with vehicles. The Ministry publication' also shows that, out of a total of 264,026 vehicles, 102,175, or nearly 40 per cent., Were two-wheeled, comprising 55,737 bicycles and 46,438 motorcycles. They were involved in well over half of all the accidents.
• It would scarcely be realistic to argue from this that all cycles should be scrapped with the object of cutting the accident rate by more than half. The case for segregation, and for road improvements in general, is, however, strengthened by these figures, and by the fact that 175,155, or two-thirds, of all the vehicles concerned were involved in collisions. .
Some encouragement for this point of view is given in the introduction to the report, which admits that "improved road conditions would have led to a reduction in road accidents," but it adds that "much more 1324 could have been done even without such improvements by more intelligent and more considerate road conduct."
In the tables making up the greater part of the report, one looks for references to these improvements in vain —or almost in vain. The document, it should be remembered, is based on police reports, and the last five tables set out in detail the factors regarded by the police as contributing to the year's accidents. Vehicles are blamed in 6,627 cases, drivers in 114,409, pedestrians in 44,750, and passengers in 11,838.
There are 16,275 cases where " other factors" are blamed. Out of this figure, the road surface is made responsible for only 714 accidents, and other road conditions, such as the obscuring of the view, for only 764. If this were a fair proportion, there would seem to be little need, at least from the point of view of road safety, for the elimination of black spots.
Error or Frailty
Police reports, however, are almost bound to ignore the environment. The offence, is the same whether the offender comes from the thieves kitchen or the top drawer. The police can scarcely help classifying road • accidents in terms of human, animal or mechanical error or frailty. If a driver fails to pull up in time, he should blame his brakes, or his speed, or his ignorance, and not the condition of the road. If he corners too quickly, it is his mistake, not that of the corner. This is not a criticism of the police, who must obviously deal with things as they are, not as they might be; but the.emphasis on the faults of the users rather than the shortcomings of the highway makes the figures in "Road Accidents, 1952," misleading if considered by themselves.
It might be an improvement in subsequent issues if the Ministry were to include one or two supplementary tables, perhaps compiled by Dr. Glanville's department, to relate accidents to specific stretches of road or notorious black spots. The road user who studies the report finds a good deal of information about the use or misuse of vehicles involved in accidents, and about the behaviour of pedestrians. There are also two tables giving the " character " of the road, and showing the number of accidents at roundabouts or junctions. All this is useful information, but not enough to establish whether the " character " of a road or junction is likely to lead to accidents; whether, for example, the 2,639 accidents at blind bends are an indictment of this kind of road feature, or a reasonable proportion of the total.
The report's apparent emphasis on human error and turpitude can be discouraging. The fight against original sin has continued for thousands of years, and shows no more signs of being successful than when it began. The fight for road safety is less metaphysical. It must be won on the drawing boards of the engineers as much as in the hearts of the road users. "This problem could be solved," said Mr. Philip Noel-Baker, a former chairman of the Ministry's road-safety committee, in the debate on roads last month. "Defeatism about it is utterly and wholly wrong." A positive determination is needed to track down the numerous causes of road accidents and eliminate them one by one. There is at least some hope that the Government is coming to adopt this policy.