AUTOMOBILE FATALITIES.

The New York Times
December 13, 1920

According to statistics gathered by the Census Bureau, 3,808 persons were killed or fatally injured in automobile accidents in the United States in 1919. In the cities the great majority of victims are pedestrians, and it is the pedestrian whose safety the authorities are particularly concerned about. "Each year," says the census report, "it becomes more and more dangerous for a person to walk the streets." In an article, printed in September, Chief Magistrate William McAdoo declared: "It is no exaggeration to say that there is not a day in the year that those of us who use the streets are not in danger of life and limb, as I testify from my own personal experience." Evidence in the local courts in accident cases conveys the impression that pedestrians are generally at fault (in 78 per cent. of cases, the Police Commissioner has asserted), but it is to be suspected that the pedestrian's side, especially if he were killed or fatally injured, is not always as well presented as that of the driver. Moreover, the sweeping conclusion that the pedestrian is in most cases to blame does not take account of unfitness on the part of the driver to operate the automobile. However responsibility may be placed or calculated, what the public here wants is fewer automobile accidents in the streets of New York.

Magistrate McAdoo has made the subject a study, therefore recommendations from him are valuable. Mr. McAdoo thinks there should be more policemen in this city at the crossings. The time must come, as more and more automobiles will be used on our streets, when there will be policemen at every dangerous crossing (as at Fifth Avenue and Forty-Second Street now) to keep people on the pavements until the signals to the procession of cars are changed. Another recommendation by Magistrate McAdoo is the giving of authority to Magistrates to suspend or revoke licenses for cause. Stricter regulation of drivers in New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts, both as regards the issue of licenses and conduct while operating automobiles, has resulted in a marked decline in fatal accidents. In those States the Commissioners of Motor Vehicles are invested with powers that have a restraining effect upon owners who drive their cars as well as chauffeurs. It is undoubtedly true that the majority of drivers, both chauffeurs and owners, have a decent regard for the safety of pedestrians, but the incompetent and reckless minority must feel the hand of the law whenever they are responsible for killing and maiming. The pedestrians must have more protection. Some of them are old, some are feeble, deaf or defective in vision, and a human body is a very frail thing compared with a heavy steel automobile, which on the street or highway corresponds to the locomotive on a railroad.

Public opinion will demand of the incoming Legislature further amendment of the automobile laws. Education of pedestrians in the danger they run in not applying the principle of safety first to themselves is very essential, and of great importance is the propaganda carried on by such bodies as the National Safety Council in behalf of not only automobile and truck owners, but pedestrians and the authorities themselves. It will be a reproach to the American people if such figures as those presented by the Census Bureau are not steadily and surely reduced.