Accidents: new opinions
Page 34
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
"Forty per cent of British road casualties are pedestrians. These people are injured by striking the front of vehicles". This quotation is taken from a new book entitled Road Accidents—Prevent or Punish? in which the author and three notable contributors attempt to bring a new approach to the question of road accidents. Contrary to much accepted thinking, the book does not support the view that drivers cause accidents—or at least not they alone—and certainly drivers do not emerge as the principal causers of accidents.
The author is J. J. Leeming, retired as county surveyor of Dorset in 1964, who has a wide experience of highway engineering. He lays much of the blame for accidents on an out-of-date road system, lack of pedestrian control and inadequate street lighting. He also takes the view that the public has become immune to road safety propaganda which he considers in any event to be of little effect. The author criticizes road markings and the new road signs—in fact, there is very little in the present accident prevention set-up which escapes criticism in the chapters written by Mr. Leeming.
Dr. G. M. Mackay, a senior research fellow of Birmingham University, criticizes vehicle design, while Prof. P. J. Fitzgerald, a barrister at law, considers that the traffic laws of this country are neither clear, fair nor effective. It is left to Dr. K. F. M. Pole, a former police surgeon to the Kent County Constabulary, to look at the driver. Physical disability, mental disability, drug addiction and drinking are all considered from . the point of view of driving impairment.
The authors call for road accident research on the same scale as that adopted for rail and air accidents.
In its 233 pages this publication has head-on clashes with authority and accepted practice; it shatters some of the glass surrounding conventional thinking in this field; and it strikes the odd glancing blow at RoSPA. For the student of literature it is packed with quotations from such eminent persons as Omar Khayam, Mrs. Barbara Castle, Saint Paul, and Henry Ford. For the student of road safety it will provide a fresh, if ineffectual, approach to his subject. It is published by Cassell and
Co. Ltd. at 36s. JPBS.