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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 6 (October 1, 1928)

Safety Work Highly Effective

page 63

Safety Work Highly Effective

Safety records of the United States railroads has improved 48 1/2 per cent. in the past fifteen years, as measured by fatal accidents per 100,000 population. This is the conclusion of a summary of accidents just prepared by the statistical committee of the National Safety Council. The survey places the railroads in the forefront of the industries which have been accomplishing successful safety work in recent years.

The report shows that in 1911 the fatality rate per 100,000 population, as the result of railroad accidents, was 13. This compares with 6.7 per cent. for 1926, a decline of 48.5 per cent.

The National Safety Council does not consider number of deaths alone as an accurate measure of the trend of accidents, because changes in population from time to time are not taken into account. Deaths in a year per 100,000 persons living in that year, is the usual method of making allowance for this factor.

The death rate for all accidents throughout the country was 78.6, a decrease of 7.2 per cent. since 1911. All of this decrease, however, occurred prior to 1921. Since then the death rate from accidents has gone steadily upward. This is largely the result of the growing automobile death toll which in 1927 was more than eight times that of 1911.

The Council points out that of the fatal railroad accidents last year, 1.4 per cent. represented passengers killed, 23.1 per cent. represented employees killed, whereas 75.5 per cent. represented other persons killed. The report comments on these figures as follows:—

Less than one-fifth as many passengers and only one-half as many employees, were killed in 1927 as in 1918, but the figure for ‘other persons’ is practically the same for the two years. In 1918 ‘other persons’ made up only about 50 per cent. of the deaths, but in 1927 they were 75 per cent. of the total. These facts on railroad accidents serve to emphasise the importance of the automobile hazards, because it is largely the grade-crossing deaths included among ‘other persons’ that have forestalled any reductions in this group. A large number of trespassers—children and adults playing or walking on railroad tracks—also are included in the total of ‘other persons’ killed.” The automobile accident fatality rate increased from 2.2 per cent, in 1911 to 17.9 in 1926, an advance of 713.6 per cent.

Help me to need no help from men,
That I may help such men as need.