OCR Text |
Show Improvement at Gradecrossings Fatalities due to highway grade crossing accidents were the lowest in 1930 for any year since 1922, according ac-cording to complete reports for the year just filed by the railroads with the Interstate Commerce Commission Commis-sion and made public today. Complete reports for 1930 show that 2,020 persons lost their lives in grade crossing accidents, which was a reduction of 465 or nearly 19 per cent compared with the number of fatalities in 1929. Persons Per-sons injured in such accidents in 1930 totaled 5,517, a reduction of 1, 287 compared with the preceding year. In 1930, there' were 4,853 accidents at highway crossings, compared with 5,975 in 1929. This reduction of nearly 19 per cent in the number of fatalities resulting from highway grade cross ing accidents in 1930 compared with 1929 in the face of an increase of approximately four per cent in all other fatalities on the highways of this country. The railroads, in cooperation with various safety organizations hava for years waged a virgorous cam paign in an effort to impress upon the public the necessity for exercising exer-cising the maximum amount oi caution in approaching and passing pass-ing over highway grade crossings and the marked reductions that has taken place in the number of accidents at such crossings is in part due to the increased cooperation coopera-tion of the public in this matter. Elimination of all highway grade crossings is impossible owing to physical reasons and prohibitive cc-l, but millions of dollars ar-; being spent annually by the rail-icads rail-icads for the removal of the most hazardous ones and for the purcn-ase purcn-ase and installation of automatic warning devices, gates, signs and sigals at other highways rade cross ings in a effort to safeguard human life to the greatest extent possible at such points. Class 1 railroads in 1929 spent $28,445,680 for additional protection protec-tion to or elimination of highway grade crossings. Of that amount, the railroads alone spent $25,113,338 lor separation of grades, while $589,941 were expended for abandonment aban-donment or removal of highway grade crossings, and $2,742,401 were expended for additional automatic warning devices, gates, signals and signs designed to protect human life at highway grade crossings. |