FOOTNOTES
[197] See Chatburn’s “Highway Engineering,” Wiley & Sons, New York, p. 335 et seq.
[198] From Bulletin 136, U. S. Department of Agriculture.
[199] Newspaper article.
[200] Report of a Joint Committee appointed by the Governor and the 1921 Session of the Nebraska Legislature regarding the relative cost of road construction by the state and by various counties.
CHAPTER XI
HIGHWAY ACCIDENTS AND THEIR MITIGATION
It may be true that accidents are commonly the result of disorder, but as there seems to be no panacea for disorder, accidents cannot entirely be prevented. The best thing that can be done at present is to arrange everything connected with the road so that the chance of accident will be kept as low as it is possible for imperfect humanity to keep it.
Transportation accidents have always occurred and probably always will occur. In the early days of the railway such papers as Harper’s Weekly ran weekly illustrated accounts of railway accidents. If it was the intention to induce the people not to patronize the train service it utterly failed. To prevent shipping accidents the Government has spent millions in lighthouses and water-front protection. Great quantities of money have been spent to make safe river transportation. Elaborate national and international codes of rules for navigation have been adopted. Laws to regulate railways have been passed. The newest form of transportation, aviation, has already been a subject for the law makers’ wisdom.
Of all classes of accidents, whatever, as reported by life and accident insurance companies, that coming under the heading “Automobile” is by far the largest. The Insurance Press stated that during the year 1920 the automobile caused 12,000 fatalities and 1,500,000 non-fatal injuries. The 1921 statistics show approximately the same results.[201] Since it is quite likely that many accidents never get into the enumeration it may be assumed without fear of successful contradiction that about one car out of every seven has an accident causing injury to human beings each year. The number of accidents in which no human injury results must be fully as many more.
With ten million automobiles in every conceivable state of repair, with ten million drivers with every imaginable diversity of expertness, with many millions of unexpected conditions constantly turning up it would be, indeed, very strange if no accidents occurred.
Classification of and remedies for accidents can only be made in a most general manner. In some of what follows the mere calling attention to the nature of the accident will suggest the remedy; in others precautions will be mentioned.