TOLL OF ROAD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 September 1939, Page 6

TOLL OF ROAD

APATHY OF GENERAL PUBLIC IN BRITAIN. ■ COMPARISON -WITH AIR RAID DEATHS IN SPAIN. “When we heard that nearly 4000 people had been killed in air raids in Spain ir/four months, I remember the indignation that was felt all over the world,” said Miss Megan Lloyd George, M.P., speaking in the House of Commons. “The British Government proposed an inquiry to see whether this frightful slaughter of 4000 people in four months in war time might not be stopped. Yet we have had 6000 people killed on the roaQs of Britain every year for the last ten years. We lose more lives each year on the roads than the Italians lost in two wars —in Abyssinia and in Spain. A cjisaster in the mines, the sinking of a great liner or a tragic occurrence such as happened to the Thetis arouses tremendous feeling in Britain, and a determination that an inquiry must be set on foot to see that such occurrences cannot take place again. I believe that, in spite of the fact that there appears to be, because this has been happening so long, a certain complacency, there is a growing feeling in this country that action of a far more radical and drastic character should be taken in order tc curtail this loss of life on the roads.”