CARE ON THE ROADS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 December 1938, Page 15 (Supplement)

CARE ON THE ROADS

SOME CAUSES OF ACCIDENTS.

THE FACTORS OF SPEED & LIGHT. With good reason, increasingly urgent appeals are being made to road users in this country -to observe all possible care during the present holiday season and at other times. Here are some aspects of the position that deserve the attention of the motorist: Numerous accidents at curves happen between the hours of 5 and 6 in the evening. People are hurrying home from work at that time of day. It is the worst hour of the twenty-four in number of accidents. There are more accidents on curves at night than during the day. Perhaps this is because drivers are so often blinded by the light of cars coming toward them. More of the nigjit accidents are fatal, too. And. the fatalities varj r according to the speed. If a driver has an accident at twenty-five miles an hour, there is about one chance in forty-two that he will be killed. One in forty-two is the death rate for accidents at speeds between twenty and twenty-nine miles per hour. If he is driving above fifty and he has an accident there is one chance in eleven that he will be killed. His chances of life go down as his miles per hour go up. When a motor-car hits a tree at seventy miles an hour, the driver is not likely ever to sit behind a wheel again. In such an accident on a surve not long ago, the car was literally cut in two. The driver was going so fast that the car was sliced through the middle by the tree. The driver, of course, was killed. He was dead long before the dust settled at the scene of the accident. The same thing can happen, to ( any driver who tries to take curves at seventy. No one can know what is around the corner. Perhaps at the next curve his luck will be good. Perhaps there is no lorry in the middle of the road around the corner. Perhaps the curve is no shaper than it looks. Perhaps he will miss that telephone pole. Perhaps if he hits it the strength of his well-built, car will save his life. But he had better not be too sure.