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DEATHS BY WHEEL

Anything which can be said or done to reduce the number of persons killed by accident on the road is of value, because daily the dangers increase, and the faith in machine transport glows. Men, women and children are now in charge of death-dealing machines, machines which are only as safe as the person in charge allows, and machines which are subject to faults due-to! construction, wear or operation. With a horse the sense of the rider is supplemented by the sense of the horse, but a machine is blind and deaf and senseless, and will charge a cliff or leap a precipice indifferently and will mangle a pedestrian without ’hesitation tor remorse.

The London police report recently issued shows an 'improvement in the 'traffic death rate iifince the previous year, but is sufficiently tragic to suggest the need of further care. Of the 289 persons killed 216 were on foot at the time of injury, which goes to prove the truth of collision-student statements that in a collision the thing travelling the fastest is most likely to escape injury (a tallow candle fired from a guir will make a hole through a deal door) and a stationary object hit by one in motion will fare the worst. The drivers of trade vehicles seem to be most careless, for they killed 108 of the 289, which is a larger proportion of the whole than was attained by any otjier class of drivers. Private cars killed 87 persons, and injured 3777 (this in 10,502 recorded accidents), whereas the trade vehicles had more than three thousand fewer accidents (and yet a far larger “butcher’s bill.” Of the pedes- ’ ians killed 97 were crossing the road ; 26 bobbed out from behind a stationary vehicle; 21 were reported as “hesitating;” 2 were “children playing ;” and 7 stepped oft a “refuge” into eternity. , ,

It is remarkable that motor cyclists killed only 21 persons and three of their pillion riders, in 1376 accidents. Buses were responsible for 40 deaths, and trams for 10. The pedestrian has but one chance in seven of escaping death ivhen colliding with a motor cyclist, as compared with the forty-mile-an-hour nillion rider.

The ordinary push-bike destroyed 9 lives, but how many deaths the silent cyclist caused by startling a pedestrian and sending him out of his course and into the path of a motor car is not stnted. The report shows that drivers of .trade vehicles are either incompetent or careless or have their heads so full of the firm’s business that they drive on in a waking dream. It is unfortunate there are so few dogs on the roads, for a hundred or so scattered about the city might train drivers to keep a 1 sharp look out and spot the much larger < pedestrian before running him .down. *

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/HOG19310928.2.76

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Hokitika Guardian, 28 September 1931, Page 8

Word count
Tapeke kupu
471

DEATHS BY WHEEL Hokitika Guardian, 28 September 1931, Page 8

DEATHS BY WHEEL Hokitika Guardian, 28 September 1931, Page 8

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