The Wainwright-Phillips Commission of the New York State Legislature reported in 1911 a list of injuries and deaths, in the three years 1907 to 1910, affecting 1,108 persons, of whom 106 were killed and 241 were more or less seriously and permanently crippled. In addition, no less than 200 persons fell down hoistways, of whom 43 were killed outright and 19 permanently injured.
These occurrences took place only on elevators in industrial establishments, and are only those which have been officially reported.
The Industrial Commission of the State of Wisconsin reported for the ten months, September, 1911, to June, 1912, thirty-nine accidents in and upon elevators, and fifteen more due to falls down elevator shafts; all occurring in establishments of various industries. Accidents occurring in transportation were 195, so that the relation of elevator accidents and falls was 28 per cent. of transportation.
That such accidents are duplicated outside the limits of observation of labor departments is indicated by an examination of the reports of the New York county coroners, which show about one hundred deaths annually from elevator accidents in the county of New York only. In the year 1911, in the Borough of Manhattan, there were reported sixty-eight fatalities in connection with elevators, about two hundred permanent injuries, and probably about three hundred more may be estimated as having sustained lesser injuries.
The fact that accidental occurrences in or about elevators are thus found to be deplorably numerous and increasing is not to be taken as a reflection upon the general security of elevator travel. Their number is relatively small in comparison with the vast number of persons utilizing these appliances. One express schedule elevator handles about 700,000 persons per annum. Further, by far the larger number of mishaps are not due to failure or fault of the elevator itself, but occur in and about the entrances of, or in the hoistways of such apparatus, from persons falling through unguarded openings into elevator shafts, and of course a number are due to the recklessness and incompetence of employes and operators.
It remains the fact, however, that a large part of these occurrences are unnecessary, just as was found to be the case with many of the forms of danger to life and injury to limb which attended the operation of freight and passenger trains prior to the adoption of certain of the safety appliances and methods which have been brought into general use on railroads, as a result of the concentration of public attention upon the subject, and legislative action based thereon. Similar attention and action with the compilation of statistics upon the subject will undoubtedly result in diminishing the number of fatal and injurious occurrences connected with elevator operation.
Some loss of human life and injury to the person may to some extent be regarded as an unfortunately inevitable accompaniment of all forms of motive apparatus, and the complex conditions of modern existence have not only increased this liability by demands for more rapid movement of all forms of mechanical transportation, but the vast increase in the usage of appliances has introduced new elements of danger.
In no class of transportation are the effects of haste and crowding more apparent and dangerous than in the modern means of vertical transportation, use of which is now made by all classes of people. Liability towards accidental occurrences in elevators, therefore, affects the whole public, and it is needless to dilate upon the general concern in, and economic loss resulting from deaths or injury of any member of the community. It may be conservatively estimated that the economic value of the mere services of persons killed in and about elevators, based upon life expectancy, and the loss of time of those injured, would annually exceed the cost of equipment of all passenger and freight elevators with modernized safety appliances.
There are some features connected with elevator accidents which call for consideration and rectification. These have grown up around the development of the appliance in a manner somewhat peculiar to it. The elevator is a transportation apparatus which is for the most part privately operated and owned. Unlike the railroad, it is not regarded by the law as the apparatus of a common carrier. Unlike the road carriage or car, it is not operated upon the public highways. Unlike the machinery of a factory, it is not utilized exclusively by employes.
Its development and use have been, perhaps, too restricted to require the attention of such legislation as has been rather freely applied to the other classes of appliances engaged in transporting human beings.