ACCIDENTS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 210, 29 April 1932, Page 2

ACCIDENTS

SOME FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR MANY HEAD-ON COLLISIONS In an attempt to consider the why. and wherefore of head-on collisions several problems have to be faeed. First of all such an accident is — or should be — the most important of many happenings which every driver is aiming to avert. The preventing of any kind of accident is foremost in the mind of every eareful driver, but a head-on eollision is a calamity i which can be so dreadful in its con- j sequences #that any and every risk ! which can bring it about should be considered with a view to prevention. How, then, do -head-on collisions. occur? Almost invariably in recent times such accidents have happened late at night or in the early hours of the morning. Apart from the possibility of an unavoidable skid beirig responsible, they point to the human « element having failed and to there being insufficient time in the circumstances for the reaetion that might make for safety or the lessening of the effect of impact. There are drivers who are impulsive by nature, hut there are times when they respond to a given situation. In no direction is this made so elear as in the desire which some drivers evince for getting ahead of other vehicles. A motorist travelling against an oncoming- line of cars will see from time to time one driver edging out of the line. If his reaetion is timely he will be seen to get back quickly and give the road to the approaching- vehicle. Sometimes his impetuosity will lead him to risk it and come on, leaving it to the other man to give away. At times the situation is saved. It all depends on the approaching driver, but it often leads to the excessively dangerous and annoying necessity for cutting in. To many motor ists drKung is a series of these impulses and reactions, and if the impulses are not repressed in time there is danger of disaster. Conditions Different at Night In daylight the impulses of most drivers are controlled sufficiently for reaetion to eheck them. The question is whether conditions at night change so considerably that they are responsible for errors of judgment? _ We think they do, and we are of opinion, moreover, that there are those who have never made the discovery that they are temperamentally unfitted for night driving. Judgment which m broad daylight is usually unerring can be entirely faulty at night. This does not apply to all, for there are drivers whose vision and actions are unaffected at night and whose "sensing ' is nncanny even in a fog. Factors which enter ipto this matter are mental and physical fatigue (often bothl ; the stimulus of even a moderate indulgence m alcohol, or merely of the harmless excitement of an evening party. These may, in some natures, have effects upon the impulses and counteracting influences upon the reactions, and in a sudden emergency the result may be disastrous. . The sad thing about recent night fatalities is that those who might throw some light on the subject bave been the immediate victims of the crashes, and the causes, actual or contributory, are not clearly known. There is all the more reason, therefore, why we should endeavour to find,' by a process of reasoning, what are the factors responsible, with the object that all drivers shall properly discriminate hetween risks which are formidable enough in day-time, hut which may be infinitely more so under night-driving conditions, and so guard against a type of fatal accident that has been far too prevalent of late.