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Inner Contradictions
Page 109
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NEWS that the accident statistics for 1952 reveal a welcome drop compared with those for 1951 is likely, if anything, to encourage road users to show even greater courtesy and care during the coming year. The fatalistic attitude towards an increase in the number of accidents has been checked. At the same time, nobody would suggest that the battle for road safety has been won.
In a short foreword to the Ministry of Transport's recent analysis of road accidents in 1951, Mr. LennoxBoyd appears to suggest that the public still constitute the front-line troops in this particular type of warfare. "It is to them as road users," he says, "and not to rules, regulations or mechanical devices that we must look for an early reduction in the number of accidents."
This is both a surprising and depressing statement: It ignores the part played by at least one device, the zebra crossing, to which many people, including some of the experts, attribute part of the credit for the reduction in the accident 'rate. The Minister also holds out no hope that the country's road system will within a reasonable period be renewed and brought up to date.
The document for the most part deals with things as they are. There is one reference to road improvements which, " particularly at places where accidents are known to occur, will pay a uSeful dividend." It is pointed out that such money as can be spared " in these hard times" is being spent on the elimination of black spots.
Impossible Task
Candid confessions that the Government ought to do more for the roads but cannot afford it are no longer heard sympathetically. When put to it, no Government find the raising of money an impossible task. The last Government embarked on an ambitious and expensive rearmament programme, and the present Government is proposing to take £4m. a year from goods transport Operators alone in the form of the levy.
Road users pay more and more in licence fees and special taxation. The total for the present financial year will be something like £350m., compared with approximately £250m. for the year ended March, 1952, The whole amount is appropriated by the Exchequer, and the road user will be fortunate if £2m. or OM. Out of the increase comes back by way of the Road Fund.
The Road Fund report for 1951-52 begins with the statement that "the amount of the grant in aid for the year voted by Parliament was £29,464,000 compared with £26,585,000 in 1950-51." Presumably the facts have to be stated in these terms, curiously suggestive of a contribution to some charitable organization. The man in the street must wonder what led Parliament to fix so precise a figure as £29,464,000, as if it were the result of an exact calculation of what was needed.
In fact, expenditure on roads allows for barely any increase in the total mileage. The standard of maintenance is kept at about the same level, and improvements, whether at black spots or generally, proceed at a very slow pace. "Road Accidents, 1951 " provides the commentary upon this by quoting a reliable estimate that traffic in general has increased over the pre-war period by 10 per cent. There has been an increase of 55 per cent. in motorcycle traffic, regarded as by far the most vulnerable from the point of view of accidents. That the number of accidents has decreased must be due partly to better behaviour among road users and partly to improvements in the standard of vehicles. It cannot be the result of better roads.
The estimate quoted by the Ministry of Transport in itsaccounts of accidents in 1951 was made by the. Road Research Board. The Board's report for 1951 has also been published recently and it contains further facts and figures with a direct bearing upon road accidents and road finance.
False Economy It brings more closely up to date the estimate originally made by Professor J. H. Jones of the cost to the community of road accidents. The figure for 1950 is shown to be somewhat in excess of £100m., which serves "to emphasize the importance to the nation of all measures designed to prevent accidents, on the roads," The report could have added that the estimate exposes the false economy to the nation of not building the adequate roads which would materially cut down the number of accidents.
The Board stresses that the public spent £1,060m. on road transport and travel in 1949 and £1,220m. in 1950. "This was three-quarters of the expenditure on all forms of internal transport and travel," and it represented 10 per cent. of the community's expenditure on goods and services of all kinds. Over the past two years the proportion may have been even greater. Here again the lesson is plain. Better roads mean cheaper transport, and would play an appreciable part in lowering the cost of living.
In a matter of war, the voice of the general public can be heard with no degree of uncertainty, but the subject of road accidents, which can be more. lethal in effect, attracts interest only at a time when official road-casualty figures are published.
The publications to Athich I have referred deserve careful study. "Road Accidents, 1951 " analyses the year's casualties from almost every possible point of view. The Road Fund report shows in detail how the available money was spent. The Road Research Board reports observations on the behaviour of vehicles, the incidence of traffic and the materials and methods of road construction.
Official Mentality It is necessary only to scratch the surface of these publications, as I have done, to show up the inner contradictions. The fundamental problems will not begin to be solved until Parliament is prepared to acknowledge them when they are stated in simple terms. At the moment there appears to be no official acceptance of the inseparable relation between such items as the amount of money contributed by road users to the Exchequer, expenditure on the roads, accident statistics, the cost to the community of accidents and the cost to the community of art antiquated road system. While Parliament is tidying up some of the legislation affecting traffic and vehicles, an opportunity may be found to haul the official mentality on the subject of roads out of the rut into which it seems to have sunk at ,about the time when the present Prime Minister first raided the Road Fund.