Folly on the Roads The Ministry of Transport's annual report
on fatal road accidents this year analyses the causes of the 6,477 deaths which occurred in .1935. As our motoring correspondent points out on another page, the surprising and depressing conclusion of the report is that the majority of the deaths were caused by carelessness or gross negligence. This is depressing because mere folly is the hardest of all things to cure by legislative enactment or by administrative regulations ; and apparently even human folly is multiplied upon the roads. The majority of the accidents took place in conditions of good light, clear weather, and light traffic, that is, when they should have been most easily avoidable ; of the cases in which pedestrians were killed, 80 per cent. occurred by their own fault. It seems that the proposal, contained in the draft regulations for increasing road safety now before the Ministry of Transport, to increase the number of kerb-rails and control of pedestrian traffic, offers the most promising means of reducing fatal road accidents. On the other hand, when drivers were responsible, it was because of such mistakes as excessive speed, cutting in, overtaking improperly, which, one would have thought, all but criminal lunatics should have learned to avoid by now. Perhaps the safest lesson taught by the report is, if possible, to avoid the roads altogether.
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