What's causing

the death toll

on our roads?

QN THIS page two writers give their opinions on the
dead and injured on our highways. One attributes

Power for our highways. The other blames tec
ever the cause, the Pacific Tribune welcomes any

to the current campaign for saner and safer driving.

It’s the cars

yX ANSWER to the question,
_ What is responsible for the
= In traffic deaths, it is the
ie Wwe are driving today.
tr oe year the death toll by
affic gets higher. Every year
tae auto companies put out
tS with high horsepower rat-

ings and boast about it in their ~

advertisements, '

au 1s an unquestioned fact
fee is the one factor
So pind most ‘accidents.
ee Why look further than the
ars for the place to point the

ieee and to start a return
0 sanity?

ae is true, as the highly paid
ae peels for General Motors
Be he rest say when this is
een up, that horsepower
aa Speed are not exactly the
= thing. The top speeds
oe Oodern cars have increased
= Y proportionately to in-
€ased horsepower.

a top speeds are going up
os oday even the lowest pric-
Car can easily outstrip both
an legal speed limits and the
: Ual safety limits of our
eee In addition, the
tati er horsepower is a temp-
lon to dangerous speeds.

a new cars can do over
tae an hour (on level
ta. Without. the accelerator
Sees the floor. An inexperi-
the eer can get behind
withs €el on the highway and
N seconds be cruising 80
ceptiy On good roads with de-
Wort © smoothness, in a dream
d without any realization
€ dangers,

Tee Peed limit on British
4 ee highways is 50 miles
it Shea and suggestions that
iron Increased to 60 “because

People drive that fast

an: 29
=e Aid have been turned

ona on the new U.S, turn-
naa : miles an hour (on the
ion Y+vania turnpike) is the
Shest legal speed.

fee Why allow the manufac-

Dower to produce cars with

of th _far beyond the needs
~ elr owners or the safety

limi : :
Boas of our highways, just

€ these huge corpora-

tions are in competition to
present higher power statis-
tics? When will people wake
up?

If the death toll on British
Columbia highways—225 kill-
ed and 8,263 injured in 1955—
were caused by any other
means, there would be a pub-
lic outcry. But we have be-
come hardened to the daily
reports of killed and injured—
unless it happens to us.

If anyone doubts that speed
is the main killer, let him ex-
amine the actual case histories
of the slaughter.

He will find cars “going out
of control” and hitting poles,
bridges, buildings. Too much
speed to handle. Cars going
out of control and crashing
head on into other cars. Too
much speed to handle. Cars
crashing into the backs of
others cars. Coming upon a
slowly moving or parked car
too fast to see it and stop in
time. Cars failing to take
curves. Too much speed.

Here you have 90 percent
of the fatalities.

The other thing most people
know about the new cars 1S
that they are just “hunks of
in” compared to the solid
frameworks of the past.

That is because they are
built to be used up and to en-
courage “trading them in” for
new ones after a couple of
years. Which also means they
are built to crumble like ac-
cordions upon heavy impact.

Faster and flimsier, there
you have the irresponsibility
of big business in its greed for
super-profits. And the dangers
created by needlessly higher
horsepower under the hood are
only partially offset by the
manufacturers’ sudden concen-
tration on “safety” — padded

dashboards, collapsible steer-

ing wheels and the like, :
Some people say inadequate
roads are at fault. I say, non-

sense. I have personally been

driving for 28 years and‘I was
much safer when

the roads
were poorer, only ‘because the

cause of the mounting toll of
it to cars with too much
kless and incompetent drivers. What-
discussion which will contribute

cars were not these souped up
“rocket ships” on wheels.

In Europe, the roads are bad
compared to here; but fatal
accidents are rare in Britain,
France and Italy because the
cars are made with economy
and durability as the most de-
sirable qualities. It is true
there are many more cars on
the roads in Canada, but the
ratio of fatalities to cars on
the road in European coun-
tries is far lower.

Let’s put the blame where
it rightfully belongs, on the
automobile manufacturers!

Let's act

A. E. PHILLIPS, North
Vancouver, B.C.: It is
just about impossible to
read a newspaper, listen
to a radio, or watch TV
these days without run-
ning into more statistics
about the rising death
and accident rate on the
roads and highways.

Forty thousand men,
women and children kill-
ed on American . roads
and highways in 1956,
says one headline. More
people are killed and in-
jured each year in auto-
mobile accidents than are
claimed by all the major
diseases put together —
or even war.

One automobile engin-
eer writing in a recent
magazine says, “Detroit
could make safe automo-
biles, but they won't.”
Then -he goes on to ex-
plain, “Ten ways Detroit
is killing you.”

Mr. Editor, don’t you
think it is time that we,
the workers who build
the cars, buy them and
lose our lives in them,
started a campaign to
demand that the man-
facturers make safer
automobiles?

What can we do to help
to stop this rising death
toll? We must agree that
traffic accident are part-
ly due to bad driving and
inadequate roads. But
the really frightening
fact is that our cars just
aren’t safe.

_ t's the drivers

OOR drivers — and selfish
and reckless drivers who
pride themselves on their skill
behind the wheel — are more
responsible than anything else
for the rising death rate on our
highways.

There is a lot of talk about
But
I have seen more accidents

the cars being too fast.

caused by incompetent drivers

than by speed. They will sud-
denly come out for a left turn
from the right hand side of
the road (in Vancouver it’s
illegal). On modern high-
ways built for fast and safe
traffic, they creep along in the
fast, left hand lane, forcing
others to dangerous passing
on the wrong, right hand side.

The ability to build cars
which can get you places faster,
and modern roads to accommo-
date them, is progress. To
blame the cars for the accident
toll is too easy. It is like
damning machines for throw-
ing people out of work, That’s
not the solution.

The solution is to enforce
good driving, to crack down
hard on reckless drivers, and
particularly 6n impaired driv-
ers, to educate the public on
how to drive properly and
safely, and to continue to build
modern highways.

(Note how many of the fatal
accidents occur. on two-lane
roads which are antiquated in
these days of mechanical ad-
vance. Passing on such roads

is dangerous. Yet B.C. has
very few four-lane highways.)

It goes without saying that
those who recklessly disobey
speed limits are also part of
the cause of fatal accidents.
But the answer is not to turn
back the clock mechanically,
but to more strictly enforce
the laws, and keep bad drivers
off the road. I would back
suspending the licenses of
flagrant speeders for at least
a year.

As to impaired drivers, I
would point out that in the
Soviet Union they would be
warned for the first offense
(provided it was-not an acci-
dent involving a fatality), and
for the second have their lic-
ense revoked—for life. Drastic,
yes. But what social right
does any driver have to get
behind the wheel of a car he
is: in no condition to drive
and, to serve his own selfish
convenience, transform that
car into a lethal weapon di-
rected against everyone else
on the road?

My own rule for safe driv-
ing—and I have never been
involved in or, more import-
antly, been the cause of an
accident—is never to,take an
unnecessary risk, always to
concede the right of way, even
when I had every legal right
to it, if failing to do so might
cause an accident, and al-

ways to drive with the idea
that the other fellow might be
a reckless fool or a selfish
poe Sometimes he has been,
00.

FEBRUARY 1, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 11