Speed and Death
If kitty thousand casualties in a single year will not shock motor-cyclists into driving more carefully, what will ? The Committee on Road Safety, having looked at this question from every possible angle, still cannot suggest a plain answer. It would be surprising if it could. Experience shows that road accidents can only be reduced, if at all, by a combination of pressures affecting the design of the roads themselves, the quality of the vehicles, the behaviour of drivers and the practice of the police. There are no quick miracles. And when, as in the case of motor-cycles, so many of the drivers are young and exu- berant and bent on speed for its own sake, all these pressures may be reduced to ineffectiveness. But the Committee on Road Safety has done its best. Publicity 'comes first. In 1950 42,680 motor-cyclists and their passengers were killed or injured. Actually this represents a lower casualty rate per cycle than before the war, for in 1938 there were 443,651 on the road (with 32,771 casualties) as against 729,420 in 1950 (with 42,680 casualties). But it is the terrifying absolute figure that matters. As to the various improvements recommended or suggested by the Committee they may add up to something., The fact that
certain makes of motor-cycles are known to be less stable than others undoubtedly ought to be followed up. That riders of auto-assisted pedal cycles should be considered qualified through their driving test for the quite different business of riding a motor-cycle is obviously wrong. Leg-guards and crash- helmets may help to reduce the extreme vulnerability of the motor-cyclist who, in any accident, is three or four times more likely to,be injured than the more protected driver of a four- wheeled vehicle. But, as always in questions of road accidents, most of all depends on the. skill, the good manners and the sense of responsibility of the drivers. The skill of many young motor-cyblists is often impressive. Their manners are not noticeably worse than those of many motorists. But they sel- dom seem to have marked the close correlation between high speed and death.
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