Smyrna times., 1935-10-10
STATE SAFETY
COUNCIL NEWS
Control of Speed the Most
Fundamental Factor in
Accident Problem
RULES TO AVOID THEM

1NO LGo ~ - VIII lAALAsA
Control of speed is perhaps the
most fundamental factor of the
motor vehicle accident problem,
according to the Delaware Safety
Council. Many motorists have mis-
conceptions respecting the infiu-
ence which speed has on accidents.
Misstatements of facts concerning
its influence are frequent and many
of these issue from persons pur-
porting to be authorities in safety
work. The Council would like to
clear up a few important points
and endeavor to focus attention
upon the current aspects of legisla-
ton and enforcement concerning
speed control. An erroneous state
ment we often hear repeated is
speed causes most accidents" In
order to correct this statement We
will divide all traffic accidents into
three groups - property damage,
injury and death accidents and
consider each group separately.
We find that the largest consists
of property damage accidents in
which no one is killed or injured.
Many property damage accidents
occur to vehicles not in motion and
speed could hardly be considered
an important influence in having
caused them. The second group in
size is the injury accidents. The
majority of these are not serious.
Usually some speed may be involv-
ed although it may not be what is
termed high" or excessive" speed
Considering next the fatality acci-
dents we find that they are a
smalled group than either property
damage or injury accidents but we
may say that regardless of size it
is the most serious group. A sew
en- years experience developed
from carefully checked data shows
that in one of our largest states
there is seldom a death in COLI
sion of vehicles travelling at 20
miles per hour or less. Roughly
about 35 per cent of the fatalities
happen to persons in vehicles which
collide while travelling up to As
miles per hour. The majority of
the fatalities happen to riders in
vehicles colliding at speeds in ex-
cess of As miles per hour. When
vehicles collide at moderate speeds,
perhaps no one in the car is killed
even when several may be injured,
but at high speeds possibly every
one within the car may be killed.
1t is this latter type of accident
which has caused our death rate to
skyrocket. 1t has been stated that
fatalities increase in something
like a geometric proportion upward
with the speed of the vehicle at the
time of the collision" This fact
cannot be obviated with arguments
tending to confuse the issue. For
example, some who do not desire to
have any control exercised upon
their speeding tendencies will as
sert that getting on the wrong
side of the road" improper pass
ing" cutting in" improper turn
ing" are more important causes of
death than speed. Such arguments
are merely the opinions of their
advocates. In practically every in
stance where the above classical
tions are used to indicate a cause
of accident, none of these acts such
as getting on the wrong side of
road" improper passing" cut
ting in," "improver turning" etc.,
would be committed by a driver did
they not primarily originate out of
a desire to hurry, or, in other
words, some form of speed. In
other words, speed is synonymous
with death. Speed is an expression
of force, and force produces death
in accidents. Sooner or later an
emergency catches up with the
high-speed enthusiast. Failure to
meet just one emergency is liable
to spell death.