Automobile Hazard in City Streets: The Basic Cause of its Variation, and Indicated Measures for its Reduction

Abstract

From the date when the automobile first made its appearance on the streets of this country, it has been subjected to legal restriction, in the interest of the safety of the public. . . . For with the rapid increase in automobile use, the number of traffic accidents and fatalities soon rose to a level where it began to attract attention. Restrictions designed to curb this rising hazard were then enacted. During some years, the growth of these regulations was a local and rather hapiazard affair. There was little interchange of ideas on the subject between different communities. Each locality felt its own problem, and individually set out to solve it, without other help. This continued to be the case until after the World War and the period of business depression which followed it in 1921. About 1922 a very decided change began to make itself felt in this situation. The number of automobiles in the United States, which was less than five million in 1917, had increased by 1922 to nine million. With this increase, the number of deaths caused by automobiles had risen from about eight thousand in 1917 to about twelve thousand in 1921. Automobiles were fast becoming the leading factor in causing accidental deaths in this country, and the problem of automobile hazards was coming to be recognized as a national one. [From introductory section]