“Safety First”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 33, 2 May 1927, Page 8

“Safety First”

Railways Campaign LESSONS for PUBLIC From Our Resident Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Saturday. “A place for everything, and everything in its place.” This is the new motto which has been adopted by the Railway Department in its Safety-First Campaign for the prevention of accidents on the railway lines and in the marshalling yards, where the accidents of the past have been sufficiently frequent to induce the authorities to concentrate on this particular phase of precautionary measures. The newly issued poster, which tells the public that there is a place for everything, strikes the eye m a rather startling manner at first, but a recital of some of the peculiar accidents which have occurred through thoughtless and carelessness of passengers is sufficiently convin ng to prove the necessity of educating the people to a sense of their : esyonsibility. When a passenger was inj red by an empty bottle flying through the window of the carriage some time ago it was at first thought that someone had flung the empty receptacle (people rarely discard full bottles) from the side of the line. Subsequent investigation proved, however, that while the train was travelling at high speed a passenger in one of the front cars threw the bottle out of the window, the missile striking a tank on the side of the line and rebounded into a carriage further back on the train. A man standing on ;be platform of a small station at which the express did not stop was extremely surprised —and no doubt very annoyed—to receive a discarded banana skin on the side of his face as the train flew through the station. These are but two of the many accidents which occur almost daily through passengers—regardless of the surfaceman who might be keeping the railway track in order for their convenience—throwing goods indiscriminately out of the carriage windows. Although this Safety First campaign has been going for only a few months and it is perhaps a little early to give accurate judgment of its effect, the railway officials hope that its ramifications will be so effective that the history of other countries will repeat itself in New Zealand and accidents will be reduced substantially. “By the definite results which have attended the campaigns in other countries,” said the railway official in charge of the scheme, “there is every reason to hope that similar benefit will accrue to the railways in the Dominion through this effort to draw pointedly before the notice of all concerned the necessity for the adoption of “Safety First” pratices. All we want is for passengers to choose statable spots for the disposal of rubbish.” It is not only in the ill-considered disposal of miscellaneous goods by passengers that accidents on the line occur, however, and the Safety First poster vividly describes a railwayman stumbling over a carelessly thrown piece of wood to fall in front of an approaching engine. This of course is for the edification of the railwaymen themselves, and a warning to them to remember that the safety of their comrades as well as their own lives is involved in the execution of iLeir daily duties.