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Show AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT RATE INCREASES. Motor vehicle fatalities are rising again! Last year the reckless, incompetent or irresponsible driver was responsible responsi-ble for Sfi.OOO unnecessary deaths. This ghastly, ration-wide massacre is de:,tinsd to be not only repeated but made worse in 1932 unless something Etons the present trend. During the first two months of the year, 4. SCO people were killed by automobiles au-tomobiles as against 4,300 in the same period in 1931, or an increase of more than 10 per cent. That automobile deaths can be prevented pre-vented b shown by the record of individual in-dividual towns. Lowell, Mass., with ever 100,000 population, went through the two-month period without a single traffic fatality. Fine records were likewise made by St. Paul, Boston and I St. Louis. But their work was offset by those other towns and cities in which safe driving was apparently the exception, not the rule. At the time the statistics were made up, there were ten months left .' of 1932 in which to reduce or increase the accident record. The majority of drivers are competent and courteous probably less than 10 per cent cause the accidents. Either those 10 per cent must be cured, by the weight of public opinion or the force of law, or they must be prevented from using the public streets and highways. |