The Road is Neutral
Page 53
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LITIGATION from the point of view of the road user is very much a one-way traffic. He is more sued against than suing. There are times when he would like the opportunity of pinning upon somebody else the legal responsibility for damages to one of his vehicles. This is particularly so when the accident is manifestly due to some defect in the road surface or layout. But unless other persons were involved in the accident, there is nobody on whom the summons may be served. The builders of the roads have done their monumental worst and left no addresses. The Minister of Transport or the local authorities may no more be brought to account than the rolling English drunkard.
In the eyes of the law and of certain sections of the public, the road user, is always, or nearly always, in the wrong. There are consequently at times some extraordinary statements to be found in official reports on road accidents, such as that recently published by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, which examined the causes of 42,203 road accidents in 1953 and came to the conclusion that only 244, or about one half of one per cent., were attributable to bad roads.
Comments on the report have been mainly of two kinds. On the one hand there have been angry remarks about the vehicle operator or driver in charge of a "lethal weapon" and using it with no consideration for the rest of the public. On the other hand the anger has been directed towards what seems a foolish statement. Nobody can really believe that the part played by bad roads in road accidents is negligible, and the precision with which the Police Commissioner attempts to prove just this point might cast a doubt on the rest of his informative and valuable report.
Conflict in Research
Similar differences of opinion afflict other lines of inquiry. The conclusions reached by one branch of science often seem to contradict those of another, and it is unlikely that either would agree with the observations of the layman, based on his own resources and common sense.
Whatever the satistics may prove, it is not common. sense to suggest that the average vehicle driver, equable and amiable in temperament, assumes the nature of a fiend as 'soon as he climbs into his cab. The pedestrian is less dangerous than the driver mainly because he travels far slower and is less likely to develop mechanical defects in mid-career; but speed and even slipshod maintenance need not lead to accidents except in certain circumstances.
The extent of the risk varies according to road conditions. This has been generally acknowledged as common sense and has more than once been put to the proof. One of the numerous publications of the British Road Federation is devoted to the remarkable effects of the treatment of notorious black spots. Roundabouts at certain cross-roads have almost eliminated accidents. Elsewhere, wider roads, better surfaces and lighting, and improvements at blind bends and bridges, have all played their part.
Although the law may on occasion take road defects into account, they are not its main quarry. If it is not possible to indict a nation, it is, one may suppose, equally not possible to indict a road system. The police may prosecute the driver of a vehicle, but not a greasy • road or a dangerous corner. On this reckoning, roads are merely the places where road accidents happen. The driver who gets into a vehicle and drives off must be presumed to know the possible consequences of his action. He cannot plead afterwards that nobody in his right senses would make roads like those which he is forced to use.
In the eyes of the law the roads are as innocent as a lunatic. It may be, however, that there is a moral responsibility above the legal responsibility, if only the . road user could find somebody at whose door to lay it. There are ways and means of measuring the cost of road accidents to the community. In 1946, Professor J. H.
Jones, the economist, in a report to the Minister of Transport, estimated the annual figure at £100m. Rising costs and the increased use of the roads would bring the figure up to something like £150m, at the present time.
Costs Raised
The cost of accidents is not the only burden the road user has to bear as the result of an inadequate road system. His bill for tyres, fuel and vehicle repairs is increased when he has to use roads not built for modern vehicles and not ample enough to enable him to travel at regular speed. On top of this he has to reckon the cost of his wasted time, wasted largely because the roads are not sufficient for the vehicles, which consequently get in the way of each other.
Mr. A. B. B. Valentine, a member of the British Transport Commission, has estimated that the users of London Transport have to pay at least .E500,000 a year extra in fares "for want of a general ban on street parking in the inner area of London, which would make the bus services so much better and cheaper to run." His suggestion is to build car parks, which are in a sense an extension of the highway.
Many other people have made the same suggestion, including the Minister's own advisory committee. There are even rumours of official soundings in one or two West End squares. There is everything to be said in favour of bringing home to the public Mr. Valentine's point that the cost of any delay is included in the price of fares. The prospect of something in it for himself will give an extra edge to the passenger's demand for Government action.
The penalty of the country's bad roads is, born.e by the whole community. We may never see the Minister of Transport or the Chancellor of the Exchequer brought into court, but their moral responsibility is becoming clearer. On a strictly financial reckoning the Government drive a good bargain every year when .they spend a little over £30m. on road construction and maintenance, and take 10 times that amount from road users in taxation.
This can be termed yet another scientific formula that may be accurate within its own terms of reference but becomes absurd as soon as other considerations are taken into account. The Government may have to spend money on improving the roads, but at the same time they would be putting an equivalent amount, or more, into the pockets of the public.