Show war on highway slaughter the october issue of readers digest contains an article describing the war against highway slaughter being waged by the state of 0 washington what makes the washington program of special interest is twofold two fold first their determined and all out program of strict enforcement at all levels succeeded in a drastic reduction in highway fatalities last year compared with the previous year secondly this year their highway deaths arc are beginning to rise again compared with last year why I 1 the answer to this question might be suggested in a point brought out at the recent utah traffic court conference when james P economos of the american bar association emphasized the need to have any accident prevention program properly balanced this means that the courts must proceed on a correctional basis rather than purely a pani punitive tive and revenue theory at AA the same time the court must weigh each case in the light of the class of driver involved i e is he lie a cant a dont or a wont type of driver I 1 by the same token the enforcement officers must back up the courts and proceed intelligently and consistently in their functions their actions in turn must be diligently backed and supported by tho prosecutors because nothing ho so discourages an officer as to see his efforts nullified by faulty or ineffective following up action on oil the prosecutors part the utah conference also stressed the need to have the entire enforcement program equally supported by a continuous and well carried out program of public information and education the other facet of the overall over all accident prevention program highway engineering must also keep pace there ie is therefore tho possibility that ono one or more of tho the vital elements mentioned above lias has not been functioning properly in tho of washington even though at first it was no better example could be found foun d than this to illustrate the key importance of each and all elements to work together in the common interest reducing accidents and saving lives we in utah can draw a good lesson from experience because the utah safety council recently announced that not only are there serious deficiencies in each of the three basic elements of the utah program but our traffic accident record this year is revealing a sharp upward trend compared with last year and the year before this therefore means not only more lives lost but a really serious economic loss lohs of millions of dollars the answer then both to utah and washington is not simply in wishful thinking and continued pleas for driving dri the real answers lie in the shortcomings short comings revealed in the analysis reports of the annual anual inventory of traffic safety activities and in tho the determination of our official and private agencies to correct our weaknesses such deficiencies exist in nil all three of the principal fields of enforcement education a and nd eng engineering i one or two of these by themselves is not enough the boston gazette leading farewell address I 1 newspaper which espoused the was first presented to the cause of the american revolution american public in the columns never had more than 2000 of the philadelphia daily adviser circulation I 1 at the end of the american revolution there were 43 newspapers in the colonies |