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Show LESS ACGIDENTS BY BETTER ROADS Improved Facilities Would Lessen Many Dangers. (By E. E. Dufly) A signboard ten feet square with the big lettered words, "Danger Sharp Curve" clearly outlined against a background of black and white stripes is placed In plain view along a highway In Iowa. Two people were recently placed In a hospital because they didn't see that Warning. This merely Illustrates that in automobile auto-mobile accident prevention, chief con slderation must be given to the human hu-man equation, personal element or whatever other name can be applied to human frailty. Fault of Operators. State records show that Go per cent or more of motor car accidents may be attributed to car operators and that a tenth to a third of the mishaps are due to the negligence of pedestrians. Automobile accidents are Increasing, Increas-ing, taking the country as a whole. Car usage Is growing for two reasons: rea-sons: 5,000 cars are added to those present every day, and better roads and the tendency towards motorization motoriza-tion lead to more intensive use of every ev-ery motor car. Much can be done, of course, to cut down the human factor In accidents, yet there is this, too, to be considered. consid-ered. Highway facilities must he constructed that will reduce to a minimum min-imum the possibility of human error In driving cars. High Speeds to Stay. Automobiles capable of high speeds are without doubt here to stay, unless un-less some faster means of transportation transporta-tion is created. Laws cannot train man to be a better Judge of speed or distance and so long as Inadequate highway facilities exist car accidents will occur. Fortunately, for most safe highway facilities there Is a dollars and cents Justification. Highway grade separations, separa-tions, whereby one road or street passes over another at Intersections, compensate for their cost where traffic traf-fic Is heavy. Pedestrian tunnels! which permit foot traffic to pass safely safe-ly and speedily under busy thoroughfares, thorough-fares, also are economically feasible. The same Is true of railroad crossing separations, of double-decked highways, high-ways, of wide streets and roads. Twenty-seven thousand people are yearly dying In cur accidents. That Is too many. |