Lifeguards For All Vehicles.
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The Use a Hurdle.-type Fenders.
By The Editor.
This journal is proud of the share which it bore in the advocacy of hurdle-type lifeguards at a time when they were practically unknown and unused. Cumulative statistics show that many lives have been saved in the Metropolis through the emplo2,ment of such fending attachments. These fittings have now been practically standardized, largely by reason of the detailed attention and care which have been bestowed upon them by the engineering department of the London General Omnibus Co., hut that company, in its desire to do art within its power to reduce fatal accidents, makes, we understand, no claim to patent or other rights in regard to thent The first hurdle-type guard was fitted to one side of
a London motorbus chassis towards the end of 1912. It at once appealed to us as the proper solution of the major portion of the problem of efficient guarding. It was illustrated in our issue of the 12th December, 11)12. We quote from our issue of the 21th April, 1913, at, a date when the device was under test :— " Our own ermAruetive suggestions in print have been confined to a protecting guard, of the rail and hand-grip class, extending from a point slightly behind the driver's seat at an angle outwards to within a couple of inches of the back wheel, on each side of the vehiele, below the frame level. Our principal reason for advocating that. model has been the knowledge of the high percentage of accidents in which one of the back wheels alone is concerned. .
" The above-mentioned inferiority of risk in respect of the front wheels, whilst it in no sense justifies the abandon. inent of effort to find adequate means of protection at the so-called business end ' of the vehicle-2--comparable, possibly, to thc system in vogue upon electric tramcars, does emphasize the necessity for further study of detail in connection with the guards to the driving wheels. The chance tograsp and to cling is of first importance, because a high percentage of deaths necurs amongst young and active persons, who are quite capable, given the opportunity, of helping to save themselves. It is on some of London's crowded sivI ill-cleansed thoroughfares that cyclists and other ablebodied men are injured or killed through a. momentary lack of balance or self-possession. They might as well grip at the smooth sides of a barge in the river, as try to find a handhold on a standard body or frame."
It was on the 18th June, 1W3, that the Public Carriage Office approved this type of guard.
The foregoing views have equal application to ex isting types of unprotected lorries, vans and wagons, and we feel that there is occasion to proceed, as we now do, to recommend the elimination of risks which continue to be accepted unnecessarily, and in our opinion unwisely. As in bus practice, so in lorry practice, it will be necessary to arrange a gap in the top two rarl,s of the guard, in order to permit easy access for brake or other adjustments.
Our present references to this matter are prompted
by the most recent endorsement of the claims of the hurdle-type lifeguard by Dr. F. J. Waldo, the coroner for the City of London and for the Southwark district. Probably no city coroner has expressed himself in the past with more intelligent appreciation of the many factors of the traffic problem than has Dr. Waldo. He was one of the first public officers to recognize the importance of the incidence of accidents that were attributable solely to the back wheels, and we have his authority for stating that, according to statistics which refer to upwards of 600 inquests, 60 per cent. of the fatalities were due to injuries so caused, whilst only 40 per cent were due to contact with front wheels.
Dr. Waldo considers that the time has now arrived, and we are ready to agree with him so far as the Metropolis is concerned, when motorbuses should not be the only vehicles that are fitted with side fenders. It appears to us, from a perusal of the proceedings arid riders at anumber of coroners' inquests, that owners of lorries and vans) will be acting in their own interests, qua either civil or criminal proceedings, if they take the matter into their own hands, and if they issue instructions to suitable parties to fit their vehicles with hurdle-type lifeguards on the L.O.O.C. model. We will go further, too, and express, the opinion that no insurance company will in that event be justified in refusing to give a distinctly preferential rate in respect of third-party cover. Such reductions, we opine, will quickly recoup the out/ay upon a pair of hurdle-type guards, and we gather that a wellknown engineering firm in London is ready to take orders for such equipment at approximately £5 per pair of guards, The potential saving of life should in any event be the determining consideration.
We observe that Dr. Waldo gong so far as to suggest the addition of lifeguards to trailers which a-re drawn behind motor lorries, but we cannotsee a justification for this further demand upon owners, except in conjunction with a like demand upon owners of horsedrawn vehicles, or upon proof that accidents are due to trailers. So far as our experience goes, and hearing in mind accidents throughout the past 12 years of considerable employment for trailers in Lancashire more particularly, we are satisfied that deaths which are caused by trailers are in practically all cases attributable to accidents to employees while coupling up, or to the unauthorized use -of the trailer bar as a riding perch. They do not concern ether pedestrians.
It does no good to the reputation of commercialmotor traffic as a whole, for the public repeatedly to read the expressed view of Dr. Waldo and other coroners, that such and such a life might have been saved had the motor lorry been fitted with a lifeguard. The proved efficacy of the side fender is such that there is no longer reasonable exenan for its nonattachment in the Came of vehicles which are largely used in busy streets. We seriously commend to the attention of owners the expediency of their moving in the matter of their own volition,