ROAD ACCIDENTS ANALYSED

Chronicle (Levin), 3 July 1946, Page 4

ROAD ACCIDENTS ANALYSED

WHERE DRIVERS FAIL With a view to determining the causes of road accidents and where the drivers involved were at fault, he Transport Department recently completed an analysis of the accidents involving personal injury which were reported to it in 1945. The resultant statistics make interisting reading. Failure to apply the right-hand rule and give way was the predominant cause, and out of 382 of such instances 29.6 per cent. were entirely the cause of the accident. Failure to keep to the left-hand ude of the road was the next highest, 15.4 per cent. being the total cause in 199 instances. The other reasons for accidents, with the number of instances of hem are as follows, the figures in parenthesis representing the persentage where the breach was the total cause of the accident: Not attentive to driving 127 (9.8 per cent.) , wrongly overtaking 96 (7.5) , ->peed too great for conditions 70 (5.4) , skidding of vehicle 55 (4.3) , recklessly failing to stop or otherwise avert "accident 46 (3.6), negligent handling of vehicle 40 (3.1), driver intoxicated 25 (1.9), driverasleep; sleepy, fatigued or suddenly '■11 21 (1.6), driver inexperienced or incompetent 19 (1.5) , failing to give way to pedestrian at authorised crossing 17 (1.3), failure to signal 13 (1.0), following other vehicle too closely 10 (0.8) and other miscellaneous faults 170 (13.2) .