Accidents Reported by the Police Department, Year 1911.
| Fatal. | Non-fatal. | Total. | |
| Steam Railway Accidents | 187 | 554 | 741 |
| Street and Elevated Railway Accidents | 106 | 3,646 | 3,752 |
| Accidents Caused by Teams and Vehicles | 135 | 2,812 | 2,947 |
| Accidents Caused by Falling from Windows, Scaffolds, Porches, etc. | 149 | 2,680 | 2,829 |
| Bitten by Dogs | 4 | 1,281 | 1,285 |
| Injuries by Personal Violence | 177 | 2,729 | 2,906 |
| Overcome by Gas, Smoke or Heat | 189 | 653 | 842 |
| Scalded or Burned | 81 | 216 | 297 |
| Various Other Causes | 193 | 1,945 | 2,138 |
| ——— | ——— | ——— | |
| Total | 1,221 | 16,516 | 17,737 |
From this it will be noted that of 1,221 fatal accidents in 1911, only 187 occurred on steam railways, and of 16,516 nonfatal, only 554 are charged against them. Comparing the total accidents, it will be seen that five times as many persons were killed and injured on street railways as on steam railways, four times as many by teams and vehicles, four times as many by falls from windows, scaffolds, etc., and again four times as many by personal violence. Even the dogs come in for having done 73 per cent. more damage than the steam railways. Taking the last two items together, it appears that Chicago’s vicious dogs and more vicious men are nearly six times as destructive of life and limb as are the railways.
While the foregoing figures are for the city of Chicago only, they are indicative of the fact that throughout the country the number of accidents on railways is a mere fraction of those occurring elsewhere, and this fact has been recognized by the accident insurance companies when they issue policies calling for double compensation if the accident occurs while traveling in steam or trolley cars.
If the grand total of accidents on railways appears so startling when presented in concrete figures, what would it be if equally complete figures could be had for the other types of accidents classified in the Chicago report?
And now having cleared the atmosphere in that respect, we will proceed to consider the railway accidents on their own merits.
The Interstate Commerce Commission issues a series of quarterly bulletins of railway accidents. They also issue an annual report of general railway statistics, in which a summary of statistics of railway accidents was included prior to 1910, but which has since been admitted as an unnecessary duplication. The statistics of the annual report have been compiled on a somewhat different basis from those of the bulletins, and the two sets of figures cannot always be reconciled. In compiling the following tables the annual reports prior to 1910 have been followed as being the final word of the Commission.
It should be noted that the statistics of railway accidents are divided into two general classes:
First. Accidents due to the movement of trains, engines or cars, which may properly be called “transportation accidents.”
Second. Accidents not connected with train or car movements, such as happen to shopmen, warehousemen, trackmen handling material, etc., such as are equally occurring in other industries, and which are more properly classed as “industrial accidents.”