Surveyor Pleads for Safer Roads
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"rINE day in the coming summer, a road accident will occur which will involve the millionth person to be killed or injured on the roads of Great Britain since the end of hostilities in 1945." This statement was made last week by Mr. James Drake, county surveyor of Lancashire, during an address to the Institute of Municipal Engineers, at Preston.
He declared that an improved road system would reduce the rate of accidents, and cited six specific instances in Lancashire where the expenditure of a few thousand pounds on comparatively minor improvements had reduced accidents by 65 per cent. An estimate revealed that these improvements would save 720 people from death or injury during the next 20 years. Mr. Drake outlined details of five schemes to improve Lancashire's congested industrial routes, which, in combination with certain by-passes. of Preston, would save 5,000 people from being killed or injured in Lancashire in the next 20 years
"I am aware of the routine answer to plans such as these," said Mr. Drake, " 'Where is the money to come from, especially when sufficient funds are not available for road maintenance work?' I know that maintenance funds are at a low ebb, but I feel it is only fair to ask whether the same yardstick is used for expenditure in other directions. I do not think that it is. On the other hand, it is certainly true that there never has been a time when fewer preventive works have been carried out per accident on the British roads; We and limb have never been held cheaper"