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Show Utah Traffic Accidents for First Six Months Period Show Marked Decline Crossing of fingers, knocking on wood, and holding one's breath Is the day-by-day rule Utah traffic officials are follow-ing follow-ing in the fervent hope the months ahead will be as good as the record of the first six months of this year. This hope is born as the complete, comprehensive summary of Utah's traffic accidents acci-dents for the first half of 1953, prepared by the Utah Department Depart-ment of Public Safety, is available avail-able for close study. The summary shows that the number of traffic accidents of all types has been reduced approximately approx-imately 13 per cent over the corresponding cor-responding period of 1952 (from 8,463 to 7,386); fatalities were down 19 per cent from the 1952 figure (from 113 to 92) ; while the most slgnificent drop was the vehicle mileage rate of 5.6 deaths per 100,000,000 miles of travel compared with the 1952 rate of 7.8. This latter figure for 1953 represents a 28 per cent decrease, de-crease, despite an increase of 188 million miles of travel by the public. As usual, most of the accidents occurred in urban areas, and conversely con-versely most of the fatal accidents acci-dents occurred in rural areas. This is because higher speeds on the open highway always increases in-creases the severity of accidents when they do occur. Urban accidents, acci-dents, with fatalities In parentheses, paren-theses, were 5,344 (25), while rural ru-ral accident and fatalities were 2,042 (67). Violation of traffic laws was the principal cause of these accidents, ac-cidents, involving 12,838 drivers, 86 per cent of them found to be in violation of laws or rules of safe driving. The Utah Safety Council attributes attri-butes the improved 1953 record to improved enforcement policies of the Utah Highway patrol, and, less tangibly, to improved driving driv-ing habits of the public as the result of stimulation of safety awareness on the part of the newspapers, radio, and other public information media. The record of the Highway Patrol Pa-trol for the first half of 1953 shows a sharp Increase in both arrest and warning citations for moving, hazardous violations. Particular attention is being concentrated con-centrated upon those violations which most frequently cause accidents, ac-cidents, such as as failure to yield right-of-way and following too close. The Safety Council also pointed point-ed to Judges and justices of the peace in supporting enforcement officers through fines and penalties penal-ties discouraging the repetition of offenses. Recent studies by the Safety Council indicate that persistent per-sistent violations cause a heavy proportion of traffic accidents, and that strict and rigid controls con-trols over such drivers is the only cure against them. Auto-pedestrian accidents accounted ac-counted for 20 deaths and 243 injuries. in-juries. In this type of accident, 75 per cent of the pedestrians were in violation. This emphasizes empha-sizes again the responsibility of the pedestrians to observe the "signs of life" on our streets and highways. In such accidents, it is always the pedestrian who loses. In commenting upon the six-months six-months summary, Jay C. Newman, New-man, commissioner of Public Safety for Utah, expressed congratulations con-gratulations to enforcement officers, offi-cers, the courts, and the driving public. "I earnestly hope," he said, "that our record for the following fol-lowing months will be as good or even better. We can easily do this by courteous driving, by law observance, and the exercise of good, common sense. We've demonstrated that we can make these improvements over a six months stretch, so let's continue contin-ue it over another six months," he concluded. |