H.—4o,

10. ROAD SAFETY. During the past year road safety has been the most important feature of the Department's activities. Regulations have been passed controlling driving-hours in the road-transport industry both under the Transport Licensing Act and the Motor-vehicles Act, and safety measures have been incorporated in the Motor-vehicles Amendment Act, 1936. The Traffic Regulations have been revised and their scope widened, whilst a Council to act in an advisory capacity in all aspects of road safety has been set up. " In the following sections the various measures taken in the campaign are set out. A.—ROAD-ACCIDENT STATISTICS. Against the year ended 31st March, 1937, are recorded 213 deaths resulting from motor accidents. Statistics relating to these, compiled from the reports of Coroners' proceedings, are set out in Table No. 14 of the Appendix, and are compared in this table with the figures for the preceding years since 1930. 6 J

Annual Fatalities & Relative Traffic Volume. 1930-1937 Index Nos. Base Year 1980-100.

comparison of the fatality rate year by year is perhaps more forcibly illustrated by the graph below. This graph compares the annual fatalities with the volume of motor traffic on the roads during this period of eight years. In each case the year ended 31st- March, 1930, is taken as the base year. The estimated traffic volume is based upon petrol consumption figures. In order to attempt to gauge the effect so far of the intensive road-safety campaign, which commenced m September, 1936, a further graph is presented showing the actual number of fatalities month by month from September, 1935, to March, 1937. On comparison of similar periods before and after September of last year it is seen that the average number of deaths per month has dropped from 18-9 to 14-7, a reduction of 22 per cent.

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