Peril on the Roads
The enormous increase in deaths and injuries on the roads since the war began is in the main attributable to the black- out. We are paying a heavy and certain toll in deaths now to avert the possibility of a heavier toll from air-raids. These are two evils which have to be measured one against the other. It ought to be very carefully considered, or recon- sidered, whether the method of a uniform dimness spread over a large area, as adopted in the last war, is so much inferior to the method of complete black-out as to justify the loss of life and the restraints on trade which the latter imposes. London is darker than Paris. Is London right, and Paris wrong, or the reverse? A second point that emerges from the figures of road accidents is that though the increase is mainly in the hours of darkness, there is a substantial increase in daylight, with far fewer cars on the road. Analysis of the returns in London is said to show that a majority of the vehicles concerned in crashes bore some kind of label. " Priority " claims confer no title to drive dangerously, and sharp penalties should be inflicted on anyone who thinks they do and acts accordingly.
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