The Search for Safety on the Roads
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3801100304 |
| Author | F. T. Tarry |
| Published date | 01 July 1938 |
| Date | 01 July 1938 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The
Search
for
Safety on the Roads
(Continued from page 196)
By F.
T.
TARRY
Chief Constable, Exeter City Police
III.
THE
NEXT PHASE
IN
examining the measures which might now be taken by
legislative or executive action, it is necessary to appreciate
not only the problem as it exists to-day,
but
to anticipate the
needs of to-morrow. Growing national prosperity and
improved social amenities bring to the immediate foreground
the prospect, if war is avoided, of expenditure of considerable
sums on road improvements of all kinds. Schemes may
mature for the provision of " motor
roads",
or more probably
for the provision of roads in which the several classes of traffic
will be confined to their respective tracks and directions. But
were unlimited financial resources available,the most sanguine
observer would hesitate to prophesy that road improvement
will catch up with the development of the motor car. Still less
is the driver of the motor car likely, by voluntary effort, to
restrict his mobility while detection of his speed remains the
hazard it is to-day.
"Popular"
models which to-day cruise
at
55
miles per hour, with a maximum of
80
and even
100
m.p.h., will, as a natural and inevitable sequel to road improve-
ments, be specified to achieve cruising speeds of
100
and
120,
with maxima of
150
and above.
The
motorist who to-day
maintains an average speed of 30, or 40, miles per hour
between London and York will, with the road improvements
envisaged in the programmes framed in the immediate future,
seek to maintain an average of 60 and even 70 miles per hour.
These facts must be taken into account in framing the
policy for diminishing the dangers of the road.
The
new
problem in sociology, as to the maxima in speed and mobility
292
THE
SEARCH
FOR
SAFETY
ON
THE
ROADS 293
essential to modern road communications, must seek its answer
in
the"
inevitability of gradualness". Half acentury ago the
efficacy of the turn-out of the fire engine was judged by the
pace of the horse; to-day the modern appliance is expected
to rush to the scene of the fire in much shorter time.
The
analogy from medicine is that social progress is achieved by a
process of gradualness, and the road, and its traffic, must be
gradually attuned to serve and not to govern the people to
whose service and enjoyment they are dedicated.
The
urgent need in legislative and executive effort is to
secure an improvement in those arms of the executive res-
ponsible for promoting road safety.
This
need, in relation to
the motor car, can best be analysed by an examination of its
two main aspects, (i) to distinguish the " accident
prone"
person from the safe driver, and (ii) to secure that vehicles
using the road are designed and maintained in a condition
which eliminates danger.
"Accident
proneness " is a polite
term used in statistical data and in insurance circles to describe
the vulnerability of certain types of road users and classes of
vehicles to accident.
Until the Road Traffic Act, 1934, under Section 6 of
which the Motor Vehicles (Driving Tests) Provisional Regula-
tions became law, no attempt was made to test the ability of
drivers of motor vehicles, and in the absence of legislation to
extend the tests to those who held licences before rst April,
1935, when the regulations took effect, some years must pass
before the beneficent effect of the tests can be seen.
The
advantages of tests in driving efficiency have never been in
dispute, and, while their postponement for forty years, due to
Parliamentary reluctance to interfere with the
"freedom"
which is the Englishman's heritage, may be applauded in
democratic discussion, it is clear that driving tests imposed
under the original Motor Car Act would have eliminated from
the roads a considerable number of persons incompetent or
unsuitable to be in charge of a vehicle.
It
may be less clear,
but
equally certain, that such a course would also have helped
to avoid that egotism which has characterised the conduct of
many motorists in their use of the roads.
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