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Show DON'T BE A STATISTIC " If some new plague or pestilence were suddenly to strike America, sending more than .'12,000 persons to their graves and more than a million others to beds with pain and suffering suffer-ing (the 1939 traffic accident toll), a state of emergency would surely be declared. Theatres and schools would be closed and the various relief forces would marshal all their resources to cope with the tragic situation. Parents would be frantic; government officials would tak'c drastic measures to got the dread disease under control. In a sense, America's automobile accident record might be likened to such a plague. But because the total casualties are stretched over a period of an entire year, because they Mie inn iwiunieu iu uiiv j'tii in iiuu igr j;iuup, me jiuuiic u mains apathetic. The death total last year reached 32,100, neither substantially sub-stantially better nor worse than the record for 1938. Sizeable Size-able decreases recorded in the first three-quarters of the year were completely wiped out by discouraging monthly increases in-creases in the final quarter. Non-fatal injuries increased by 64,600 over the previous pre-vious year, bringing the total to 1,210,200. This is just short of the all-time record established in 1937. In collision accidents, those involving pedestrians accounted ac-counted for 38 9 per cent of fatalities (or 12,470 persons) and 24.3 (or 203,810 persons) of the total. Collisions of automobiles accounted for 26.6 per cent of fatalities (8,550 deaths) and 54.9 per cent of traffic injuries (663,750 persons). In considering actions of drivers resulting in deaths and injuries, it is found that exceeding speed limit remains at the top of the list as the greatest single cause of automobile deaths. In 1939 there were 7,990 persons killed, or 36.5 per cent of fatalities, and 179,980 persons injured or 22.5 per cent of injuries, all attributed to excessive speed. Other drivers' actions commonly resulting in deaths and accidents were : on wrong side of road, did not have right-of-way, cutting in, passing standing street cars, passing on curve or hill, passing on wrong side, failing to signal and" im-proper im-proper signaling, car ran away-no driver, drove off roadway, reckless driving. It is interesting to note that drivers between 25 and 64 years of age are involved in 68 per cent of accidents resulting result-ing in fatalities and 733 per cent of non-fatal accidents. Drivers Dri-vers of cars in 95 per cent of motor accidents had driven for one year or more. In over 85 per cent of cases the weather was clear at the time of the accident and in over 75 per cent of the cases the road was dry. The roacf was straight on the scene of 84.5 per cent of fatalities and 76.4 per cent of accidents. Saturday and Sunday are days of greater occurence of . i a juxiueius. Deaths from automobile accidents during normal hours of darkness (6 p. m. to 6 a. m.) increased 18 per cent from 1930 through 1939- Deaths during daylight decreased 20 per cent. Chief reasons for night-time slaughter are lowered visibility, visi-bility, more drunken driving and walking, and fatigue. GET THE SAFETY HABIT DON'T BE A STATISTIC. BE SMART AND CAREFUL IN 1940. |