SAFETY FIRST.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18238, 24 November 1924, Page 9

SAFETY FIRST.

CAMPAIGN IN SYDNEY. i oca own coeabswsoest.) , SYDNEY, November 13. Tfce Safely First Association, with Dr. Harvoy Sutton, Officer of Health in tho Education Department, an its protagonist, is setting out on an aggressive educativo campaign in order to try to reduce tho alarming increase in accidents, many of them fata], in tho city especially. Never a day passes in Sydney without somebody being fatal(y injured. Letters in the Press indicate a strong feeling that in this State, and in all the other States, for that mattor, wo could well follow at least some of the American methods of dealing with the problem. Tho Association prcooses to hold a Safety First Weekr One of the leading local Government authorities in Sydney quotes a report l>y the police judge of Kansas City, in which"it is stated that in every case where a person is brought up for some offence arising merely out of ignorance tho judge 'supplies the offender, in the case of an" .accident, with a copy of the safety rules, and then adjourns the case. If in a few days' tinva the offender shows under examination that he has an intelligent knowledge of the rules, he is let off. Hi© | Amcr'cttn practice is also quoted, of; making offenders spend a certain number of hours at a congested traffic comer witli a' traffic officer. These Simple but strange processes, it is stated, havfc don® much to stamp out a crgusb for speed thai iras threatening the safety of thousands o? people. One writer recalls the pra«tioe> in Buffalo, where there are Erected in tho city large dials on which are placed the number of avoidants for the current wefck, for the month, aijd for tho year, • arid, underneath the words: ""What's your liurry?" quoted. The practice of giving safety first lectures to children at school is also quoted. Some of these methods Btriko cm© as a bit theatrical, but in the demand for tc quickening <rf public interest in the problem of stW*® n,ocidents they are (Favourably} uiented upon. Statistics ara v W£_5J show that more toys dieof a«*»9w iu this State ©vary year than from the infectious diseases.