olitical Commentary By JANUS
Page 69
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Many Problems in One
PITHETS, most of them not complimentary, tend lo
I become permanently attached to the things-we do no Taxation, for the people who have to pay it, is nost always penal; competition,.for the people who have meet it, is cut-throat and uneconomic; for the people ing them, roads are miserably: inadequate; priVate enterise is lawless; and nationalization is a stagnant pool. When, therefore, Sir kihn Nolt-Bower, Metropolitan dice Commissioner, in his annual report to the Home cretary, speaks of the "appalling toll of road accidents," is not coining the phrase. He is seeking to emphasize ! seriousness of the situation in order to explain .why.. many police have to be kept on traffic duties at a time ken London's crime record is -steadily getting worse. It is not certain, however, thaf the continual 'use-Of -harsh ithets achieves the right effect, at leaSt so far • as rOad cidents are concerned. Most toad users are careful and' nsiderate, and most of the remainder fancy thernselves be the same. They cannot imagine the use of words as " appalling "in respect of their own coridnit. . They ! tempted towards the dangerous opinion that accidents ! among the not quite respectable things that happen to
ler people. . Sir John strengthens the opinion by stressing that in the etropolitan police district last year, out of a total of 9.6 ses of death by criminal violence,.no fewer. than. 37 were used by dangerous driving. To this figure, almost by iy of an afterthought, he adds the 632 other fatal road cidents. He evidently regards them as all very much on ! same level, for he goes on to say: "It will be obvious it the widespread misery and human suffering caused by !se deaths on the road are in themselves sufficient itifica t ion for constant vigilance on the part of the police."
All Too Real Quite clearly, this is not wholly true. There are many cidents because of such things as, bad roads, bad weather, man error and folly, that the police force, however only manned, could do nothing to prevent. The misery d the human suffering are all too real, but they must t be allowed to foster the idea that all road accidents are the same kind. It must always be remembered that !re is not one road accident problem, but several.
The point seems to be well underStood by the Royal ciety for the Prevention of Accidents. Their publication, R.oad Accident Statistics, 1957," analyses the . evidence )m several points of view, with the help of 23 tables and
e diagrams. The general picture is melancholy. The tal of 273,858 people killed and injured in 1957 was the ;hest ever recorded, in other Words the highest ever, for .t records go back to 1909. There were 5,550 deaths, increase of 183 over the 1956 total. The figure was ceeded, however, and in some cases greatly exceeded, in ch year between 1928 and 1994 inclusive.
The only big increase in casualties during 1957 was long the users of motorcycles. The number rose by .4 per cent. for the motorcyclists themselves, and by .2 per cent, for their passengers. During the year, there is an increase of only 10 per cent. in the number of 3torcycles licensed. Casualties to pedestrians dropped • 3.1 per cent., and to drivers by 1.5 per cent., although types of road vehicle increased in number, and the iident population also went up.
The most satisfying feature was the reduction in the.
number of accidents to children under 15, The total of 629 child deaths is easily the lowest ever recorded since road accident figures were first kept. Despite increasing traffic intensity and the steady rise in population, fewer children have been killed in the past five years than in any other comparable period for 'which statistics are available.
As a proportion of the number of vehicles on the road, there are fewer casualties each year. Road deaths per 100,000 vehicles were 75 in 1957, as compared with 80 in 1956,, and 215 in 1938. For the same number of vehicles, there were 3,690 casualties last year, 3,990 the year before, and 7,550 in .1938:
The total of 338,435 vehicles involved in accidents in 1957 was higher than in any previous year, and 3,309 more thati in 1956. Most of the categories of vehicles showed .one'. increase. The annual figure for passenger vehicles has shown a fairly steady decline since 1951; for goods vehicles the decline dates from 1955.
Sixth Sense It would not be scientific to draw from these figures definite conclusions, such as that bus, coach and lorry drivers are becoming more skilful, or that children are aCqUiring a sixth sense for use on the roads, or even that motorcyclists are more reckless than they used to be. It is sufficient to note that, from whatever point of view one begins, the pattern is different; and that the various methods being used to reduce the rate of road accidents are having some effect, although still not enough to be satisfactory.
The best methods are those that are suited to a particular aspect of the road-accident problem, and are not merely generalized expressions of horror. If the ordinary road user is consistently made to feel that every accident on the road is intrinsically different from an accident in the home or at work, he may tend to put the matter out of his mind, or to suspect all road safety propaganda.
The bad though well-intentioned habit of dragging the road-accident problem into most undesirable contexts is growing. Atrocities and disasters are minimized, although that is not the intended effect, by pointing out that they cause less suffering and death than road vehicles. In small doses, the comparison may be salutary. We need no startling 'posters or loudspeaker vans to help us feel the tragedy of the loss of life, limbs and faculties in a war, or a battle, or an air raid.
The mistake is to make the comparison too frequently. Repetition dulls the edge of our feeling. Worse still, there comes the stage when we imagine that there is some genuine resemblance, apart from the accidental statistical one, and that the comparison is valid as well as vivid. From this point, it is only a step to the idea that war is not so
horrible after. all..
For, whatever the statistics, we do not really believe that accidents of any kind can in any proper sense be equated with war casualties. The ultimate absurdity of arguments seeking to prove the contrary was provided the other day by a spokesman on the subject of the United Nations' document on the effects of atomic radiation. He is reported to have said that such radiation caused only a small fraction of the number of deaths through leukaemia, and that that number was much less than the annual Rita' of road fatalities..