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Show Economic Highlights i ; 'Iu ppe; ir.?r'i That Affect t!:e D nner ' Pails, Dividend Checks and Tzx Bills of Every Individual. National m (I Interna:?". ' I I'roldcms Instp-urulic Instp-urulic from local Welfare. A'ltt.r.'bile accidents constitut; in mereasii gly g.ave social problem. prob-lem. They censtitute a highly erious e.cnmic p.cblem as well !:e t estimates place the annual money waste cf highway mishaps it mere than $1,500,000,000. As a consequence, the problem is gaining the attenticn of ecor.cmis-as ecor.cmis-as w 11 as humanitarian ', ana iinancial Journalists as well as high way and automobile engineers. With few exceptions, each pot-war pot-war year has witne sed an increase in deaths, injuries and property damage due to automobiles. Last vear a new all-time record was established, es-tablished, with 38,000 deaths and 1.300,000 other casualties This year, if the increases registered in the early months continue through-cut through-cut the twelvemonth, 1937 will witne wit-ne the establishment of still another an-other all-time record. Safety authorities and organizations organiza-tions are discouraged1 by past experiences ex-periences and future prospects, but they are not dismayed. Plans now underway call for the most aggressive aggres-sive accident prevention campaign yet made in this country. Princi- ! pal cnp'.izaticn in the field is t'e.e Natcr.sl Safety Council which is publicizing the need for strict drivels' driv-els' license laws, fcr sianda izaiicn ct tiafSc laws and sienals. and a general "tightening up" f tie stricturto designed to hold the reckless and incompetent in clrck. Effort is being given tc create safety saf-ety committees in each :-.ete which will be at wcrk ail the time, v. ill do away with sporadic, poorly organized organ-ized "drives" which, as past expel ex-pel iencj shows, have been almost 100 per cent failures. The autcmc'oile industiy i likewise like-wise cooperating for a variety ot reasons, humane and financial. It is ur.deniable that this industry has done wonders in recent years in making car i mechanically and structurally safer. Advanced new ca'.s even have recessed instruments instru-ments and dcor handles, so that in case of a cra h the occupants wen t strike against projecting pieces cf metal. Some manuacturers lately agreed to refrain from stressing speed in their ads, in order to keep the buyer's thoughts away from the prospective excitement of driving driv-ing his car at a racing speed. To a far lesser extert. there has ben similar progress in road building build-ing tc eliminate the hazards cf dangercui turns, hills and narrow surfaces. Such work as this, however, dces-i n't affect the human eleme nt, responsible re-sponsible factor in more than 90 per cent of all accidents. And it is to this element that raf;ty work that is to really produce results must appeal. The trends rr. ::st noticeable notice-able in last year's d.'iving hav. been ."ummed up by the U. S. News in a study cf official state rep rt:. I Favorable trends included: Advances Ad-vances in law enforcement and engineering; en-gineering; a slight drcp in cisual-ties cisual-ties in proportion to miles driven; a slight drop in the proportion cf casualties ascribed to "careless diiving"; the records of some states which carried on con istent campaigns cam-paigns during the year, and shewed accident decreases as a result. ! Unfavorable factors include. A rise in the proportion of accidents caused by speeding; an 8 per cent increase ever 1335 in the numb r of drinking drivers involved in fatal accidents; little prcgie.s in traffic law devel pment. The drinking factor is tending te become pr. feressively serious. Over 1 7 per cent of all drivers involved I in fatal accidents are und'r the influence in-fluence of liquor, as are about 11 per cent of all pedestrians killed. I Naturally, the night hours are the 'mast dangerou. for car cperatir.ii. j Over a five-year period ending with 1P35, automobile deaths at night 'increased 37 per cent, while day-: day-: time deaths dropped 12 per cent, j And speed is far and away the ma-I ma-I jor cause of all accidents, particularly particu-larly the more serious one. both night and day. The astonishing sales rf new cars and the generally beosted volume cf trafTic, have paved trie way for making 1937 an exceedingly bad i accident vear. On the ether hand, j the wcrk of the accident prevention groups will be unprecedented both in scope and aggre siveness. Only-time Only-time can tell which of these oppes-I oppes-I ed forces will be the winner. J I While stocks, in their general trend have been going up, b-nds have been going down since they reached their all-time high last , Dcember. There are various minor i rea ions for this, but or.e over- shadowing major reason: Fear of inflation. , I Most cf the business comment a-jtors a-jtors have been discussing and an- ticipating credit inflation for .'.cme 1 time. A short tme ago the President Presi-dent in a Fireside Chat pointed to j the danger cf it appearing in the near future. Security exchange officials have been and are f i ankly worried! by the almost feverish activity ac-tivity in the stock market. It is kncwnl that the Government is studying po sible steps designed j to prevent tr retard inflation. , |