Safety News

Young, Old, Need Safety Education

THE safest cities in the country have developed broad programs of adult and child safety education in their efforts to reduce deaths and injuries from motor vehicle accidents, according to a study of National Traffic Safety Contest reports. Teaching the maxims of safety to children, drivers and pedestrians is given much credit by officials of these cities for reducing their fatalities from motor vehicle accidents all the way from seven to 23 per cent during a time when the national average has been going up.

Milwaukee delivers its safety lessons to citizens in continuous, easily absorbed doses. These doses, Milwaukee safety men say, go down without a single gulp because they are flavored with courtesy, foresight, and intelligent understanding of the problems to be solved.

Public assemblies, at which safety authorities address the people, are held once a month in Milwaukee as an integal part of that city's educational program to promote greater safety on streets and highways. By extensive radio broadcasting from local stations, by the maintenance of 500 poster boards that are changed each month, by conducting a school for drivers, and by a myriad of other means Milwaukee teaches the lessons of safety to its citizens.

The perils of the drunken driver are well-known in Rochester, N. Y., where the Traffic Safety Commission has conducted an intensive drive for his elimination. By use of all the publicity at hand-newspaper, radio, posters, special public meetings, and by a rigid program of enforcement, Rochester is conquering this vicious cause of automobile accidents.

A safety lane in Oak Park, Illinois,self-admittedly the world's largest village-teaches valuable lessons in maintaining an automobile at mechanical par. A special Traffic Safety Code Hand-Book, illustrating right and wrong ways of driving, have been distributed widely. Oak Park's Safety Commission sponsors regular public safety assemblies.

Safety education for the child is considered so important in many cities that a required course of instruction is given in all elementary school grades. Holding Traffic Court in one of its local theatres was one method used by Allen-

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ONE OUT OF TWENTY

WILL BE INJURED OR KILLED IN A MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENT WITHIN 5 YEARS

Arizonans Attend Safety Conference

By ETHEL HICKMAN Secretary, Arizona State Safety Council DELEGATES from eleven western states, Canada, Alaska, Mexico and the Hawaiian Islands convened in Salt Lake City, September 21, 22, 23 and 24, for the annual Western States Safety Conference. B. D. Nebeker, member of the Utah State Industrial Commission, presided as chairman.

Arizona delegates were J. R. Van Horn, Don C. Babbitt, H. H. Hotchkiss and the writer who addressed 1,300 high school pupils on the value of safety and also served as chairman of the afternoon during the second day.

Education and Enforcement were stressed as the most important factors in the prevention of motor vehicle accidents.

Opposition to so-called "horror" campaigns was expressed by numerous speakers throughout the conference. Establishment of schools, not only for traffic violators (in connection with police courts) but in the public schools them-selves, from kindergarten to university, was urged.

School-boy patrols were highly endorsed. School-boy patrols are approved by the P.T.A. as working from the curb only-and not from the streets. Safety attitude in the home is an important factor in safety on the highways and should be encouraged according to several speakers.

A resolution which was adopted unanimously by more than 150 delegates attending the final business session of the conference, aimed mainly at tightening up enforcement measures and weeding out incompetent and accident-prone drivers. Strict physical and mental examinations and the carrying of uniform drivers' licenses bearing both signature and fingerprints were asked for.

Prominent among suggestions offered by speakers to curb the growing toll of deaths were: