SUCCESS OF SAFETY CAMPAIGN

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 69, 8 April 1937, Page 6

SUCCESS OF SAFETY CAMPAIGN

-Presa ABsociation.)-

60 Lives Saved in Six Months * MR. SEMPLE'S CLAIM

(Br Telegraph-

"WELLINGTON, Last Night. "I am pleased,.to say that as a tesuli. of our road safety campaign during the last six months oit -the law of averagcs we have; kept- 60^ ,odd people out of their coflma ; and . hundreds of others out of hospital," said the Minister of Transport - (Hon. E. Semple)^ at the official op'ening of the n6w Ford assembly f actory at Lower Hutt to- Iay. The De'partmerit,,he added, was doxng all it could to bring ihome to th'e people the lesson of 'safety first, last uad ali the timo., The Minister said ihe would * not . bo satisfied ' until the maxiraum ■point' of safety had been reachel. -In his opinion 95 per cent. of the tragedies on the ihighways and . byways.of Kew Zealand were preventible. It was just a question of teaching men and women to become masters of their own "inVentive genius. The piroblem of xeducing! the appal-ling-number of deaths- oi. the road was not confined to Kew Zealand. It was a problem with which thinlring men and . women in every eountry were wrestling. •"It is a problem as old as the machine itself, but when we allow rafferty rules to apply on the , highways and bywaya then we can expect trouble, " continued Mr. Semple. ' f We might have expected what we have *got because we have been- looking for "it. If we set out to teach men. and women that a pleasure-giving. machine can be turned into a death-dealing agency We will be teaching 'them how to protect themselves. We are determined to do that and if in the process .we trample on someone's corns we won't apologise. "We. are not going to apologise because the most sacred thing on God's earth is hnman lif e. I was taught that when I "Was a kiddie. I was taught it at my jmother's knee and it has stuck to me through my boyihood , and down the " yehrs until to-day ' I am in a position t'o practice that Christian philosophy. If there is any thing I can do to save piy fellow beings from prematrire death I am going tQ do it."