Motor War and the Hospitals.

War between the nations may or may not come, but the war of the street goes on for ever. Newspapers in most countries of the world express amazement at the motor traffic toll in killed and injured. A Bill before the House of Commons provides for the abolition of the speed limit for light motor cars and motor cycles. That is to say, the authors of the Bill consider that street safety is not to be insured by speed limits, and they prefer to rely on penalties for “dangerous driving” and for a lesser offence to be called “careless driving.” Whether motorists who break the speed limits will be able to break these new driving laws with equal impunity and immunity will be practically tested if Parliament passes the Bill. Meanwhile the compulsory insurance provisions of the Bill have given rise to a claim by hospitals for some participation in the benefits thereof. Not only has modern motor traffic created a host of new accidents, but, being peripatetic, it scatters its victims throughout the length and breadth of the land, creating cot cases in districts where there are few cots, overcrowding the local hospitals, and squeezing out residents with first claim on such hospitals. Moreover, “the gratitude of these motor patients to the hospitals rarely takes the form of cash, page 11 even when they have obtained compensation for their personal injuries.” Perhaps such complaints are not unknown in New Zealand.

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