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Dr. Glanville Sums Up Safeiy Problem
Page 43
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THE road-safety problem was summed J. up succinctly by Dr. W. H. Glanville, director of road research, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, when he delivered a lecture to the Royal Society of Arts in London on Monday. He said:—
" If values could be put to all the accident-producing circumstances and . these could be linked on the one side to a full knowledge of the laws of traffic movement in relation to road design, vehicle design, speed and human behaviour, and on the other to full and derailed economic and social assessments, the problem would no longer exist in its present form. The problem would then be to choose the most acceptable balance between known effects."
At present, the country maintained a system of moving the population and its goods on the roads which caused 5,000 deaths and 220,000 injuries last year. If accidents rose at the rate at which they had increased since the war, • about 350,000 casualties might be
expected in 1964. Statistically, one person in two would be a road casualty in a life of 75 years. If accidents rose in ratio to the vehicle increase there might be 450.000 casualties in 1964.
However, it appeared that as the number of vehicles rose, the population became more skilled in avoiding acci
dents. The number of fatalities per vehicle fell, but not usually at such a rate as to result in a decrease in the absolute total of deaths.
Fourth Place Less than £100m. a year was spent on roads, representing about Id. per vehicle-mile, whereas the average cost of running vehicles was 6d. per mile. The public attitude towards the road problem was such that highway construction came after the provision of beer, cigarettes and television, in order of priority. Yet if 1.000 miles of motorway were built, over 7.500 casualties a year would be saved.
Dr. Glanville stated that, in an effort to eliminate dazzle, the International Commission on Illumination had been engaged for some time in deciding upon a standard head lamp. There was a range of designs, any one of which, if generally adopted, would give similar visibility. What was essential after standardization was maintenance of the lamps with particular regard to their aim; otherwise, hope of improvement would be illusory.
Compulsory vehicle inspection in this country, as in some States of the U.S.A., might cost £24m. a year and would hold out the hope of cinting accidents by 20 per cent. It was an attractive speculation.
Dealing with individual driver's proneness to accidents, Dr. Glanville said that it was surprising that obvious personal advantages, such as quick reaction time and high intelligence, did not appear to have much bearing on the matter. Tests in this country. the U.S.A. and Canada, however, showed that the bad driver was the bad citizen, undisciplined, aggressive and domineering.
Good drivers had commendable school recoids and parental histories. In the present state of knowledge, there was no reliable way of recognizing the bad driver.
American long-distance road transport companies achieved low accident records by careful selection, training and supervision of drivers, and there were awards for good driving besides severe penalties for bad. Financial savings effected by such means were said in some cases to have made all the difference between making a profit or suffering a loss.