Legislation and Road Accidents
| Date | 01 September 1938 |
| Published date | 01 September 1938 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1938.tb00399.x |
LEGISLATION AND ROAD ACCIDENTS
I39
LEGISLATION AND ROAD ACCIDENTS
HE
problem of road accidents has occupied the public
mind to such an extent during the last few years that
its
importance needs scarcely any further emphasis. In the
initial period
of
development the motor car was regarded more
as
a nuisance than a real danger, but already shortly before the out-
break of the war the authorities became very much perturbed
by the steadily mounting figures of killed and injured persons.
In 1912 a Select Committee on Motor Traffic made an extensive
survey of the situation in London and the indeed amazing amount
of information gathered by that body not
only
at
home but also
abroad showed quite clearly to what extent the government had
become alive to the seriousness of the problem. Comparisons with
other great cities
of
the world showed quite clearly that the
position in London had already become very dangerous indeed.
In fact, London had in 1912 9-33 fatalities per
IOO,OOO
population,
while New York had only 4-71, Vienna
2.88,
Berlin 4'34. Only
Paris with
8-25
and Chicago with
7-8
came near the London
figures.
(As
a matter of immediate interest
it
may be mentioned
in passing that the figure in 1935 for Greater London was
13.1.)
The war prevented any serious attempt at tackling this prob-
lem in
a
way which might have forestalled a development that
took place later on. Lives were not
only
cheap, but during that
period the nation was preoccupied with a much sterner task. Thus
the question of road accidents was shelved for a time,
During the post-war period, again, very little thought was
given to any methods which then might have contributed suc-
cessfully to
a
substantial reduction of road accidents. Mean-
while motor traffic grew at an alarming rate and it is still almost
incomprehensible that the accompanying rise in deaths and
injuries passed almost unnoticed until approximately 1930.
By that time the number of fatal and non-fatal injuries had
already reached the colossal figure of
185,000.
It
is significant
for the rapid increase that between 1926 and 1930 the number of
deaths had risen
by
almost
50
per cent. The fact that up to that
date no compulsory insurance system was in force, perhaps more
than anything
eke,
brought home to the population,
as
well
as
to
the authorities,
the
urgent necessity for swift action. The Road
Traffic Act of
1930
initiated a period in which a great many
legislative measures were taken to combat this new danger. Hand
in hand with this development came
a
vast improvement in the
methods of collecting information as
to
the causes
of
accidents.
The immediate consequence of such better knowledge of details
T
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