The next two items, “Collisions” and “Derailments,” are also large, both as to employes, passengers and others, and we have already seen that in the former list eighteen out of twenty-six were due to “failure of persons.” Referring again to that list it will be further seen that sixteen of the eighteen were due to failure of the persons in charge of the trains, which justifies us in assuming that a similarly large proportion of these totals are due to like causes.
Please note also the large numbers, running through all these classes of persons, opposite the items “Falling from trains, locomotives or cars” and “Jumping on or off trains, locomotives or cars.” These may all be charged to the carelessness of the victims.
So, also, those “Struck by trains, locomotives or cars” nearly all of these are chargeable to the fault of the parties themselves.
“Other causes” are also prolific in casualties, but the data at hand does not disclose the extent to which they are chargeable to carelessness of victims or others, to preventable or to unavoidable causes.
Your attention is also directed to the very large numbers of killed and injured while “trespassing” on the railway property. Some of these belong to the great army of tramps infesting the country, but the largest part are people of the communities along the lines, who persist in using the tracks as a public thoroughfare. In most of the States there are laws on the statute books which are adequate to prevent this if duly enforced, but it seems impossible to get such enforcement. On the lines with which the writer is connected, efforts have been made in the past to break up this practice, but without success. Parties arrested by the railway company’s police and taken before the local magistrate have been released without punishment or only assessed a nominal sum to secure to the magistrate his fees. A rigid enforcement of these laws, and similar action as to jumping on or off locomotives and cars in motion (as is done in Europe) would eliminate approximately one-half the total killed and one-fourth the injured.
Here is a field in which the railways alone are helpless, but where much can be accomplished by legal enforcement, supported by strong popular approval. Without the latter, little aid can be expected from the average country justice or city magistrate.
INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS.
The first man to publicly call attention to the need of organized effort in this direction was Mr. R. C. Richards of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway, in his booklet “Railway Accidents, Their Cause and Prevention,” published in 1906. The seed thus sown has taken deep root, for at the present time nearly every leading railway in the country has an organized safety committee, whose duty it is to make regular periodic inspections to see that work places and tools are in safe condition; that yards, tracks, stations, buildings and grounds are clean and properly lighted; that shop machinery is protected by safeguards over gearing and other exposed moving parts, and that men are taking proper precautions for the protection of themselves and others. They report upon conditions which they feel can be improved, investigate accidents with a view to preventing repetition, and recommend improved methods of work to reduce risk of accident.
The Northwestern, after the first sixteen months, showed a decrease of 23.7 per cent. in deaths, and 29.8 per cent. in injuries, compared with the previous period of the same length. On the Pennsylvania Railroad the result of the first eleven months was a decrease of 63 per cent. in the combined number of deaths and serious injuries. These results are most gratifying, and demonstrate the usefulness of such close inspection and watchfulness.
IN CONCLUSION.