OCR Text |
Show ber of automobiles in use, grade crossing casualties, on the Southern Pacific were reduced 1 6 per cent. Trusting to intelligent analysis of the cause of such accidents and using this as a guide in determining how best to prevent them, printer's ink was relied on to do the'rest. "Stop, Look and Listen" soon became a familiar head-line to the reading public. No remedy or slogan, medical or otherwise, has saved more lives. That more drivers, thanks to the educatipnal efforts of the press, are stopping, looking and listening and are more precautious in other respects than formerly is evident from the increase of machines ma-chines on the one hand and the decrease of grade crossing casualties on the other. , After all is said and done, prevention of grade crossing casualties casual-ties is essentially a matter of educating the drivers of automobiles in safe practices. It has well been said by a high authority who has given exhaustive study to grade crossing accidents and their causes that danger at grade crossings is wholly artificial, the grade crossings, cross-ings, like bumps or depressions in a highway, are only dangerous in the degrees that carelessness on the part of drivers make them so. PRINTER'S INK NEVER LOSES The efficacy of comprehensive publicity in the prevention of grade crossing accidents is indicated by the success of the Southern Pacific in this regard. Quick to recognize the increased hazard of accidents attending attend-ing the advent of the automobile this road early began the collection of data and the study of pratices and conditions which appeared to relate to the cause of such accidents .and in turn afforded information informa-tion to the press that was calculated to affect a correction. The efficacy of this method is attested by concrete achievement. In 1923 compared witK 1922, despite a largie increase in the num- |