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20 Medico-Legal J. 1 (1952)

handle is hein.journals/medlgjr20 and id is 1 raw text is: THE MEDICO-LEGAL JOURNAL Vol. XX i952 Part One EDITORIAL THIS Society has recently benefited from the experience of experts, of this country and from abroad, on the subject of alcohol, crime and the offending motorist. The continuing high accident rate and mortality on the roads have made the people of this country and their administrators increasingly conscious of the need to remedy this unhappy and unnecessary accompaniment of scientific progress. It is a human weakness to seek a scapegoat, and, while not in any degree condoning the seriousness of the anti-social offence of the drunken driver it is right that those whose duty it is to administer justice should not allow their perspective to be lost in considering all the factors which may enter into accidents on the roads. In this country we value our freedom above all things but it may well be that for our own ultimate good some curtailment of the right to expose ourselves to the risks of death or maiming may have to be exercised. The users of roads can be roughly divided according to their manner of progress by vehicle or on foot. Each class has its own problems to contend with, both with regard to the passage of its own kind and of the other classes of users. It is less commonly that serious accidents occur between users of the same class. Rather is it when one class is momentarily forgetful or misunderstands the movements of another that disaster appears. Restrictive legislation as to speed and so on is no more the answer to the problem than is the provision of crossings, bridges and tunnels the use of which is not obli- gatory. Education can do and has done a great deal to prevent accidents, but un- fortunately it is those to whom it has not yet sufficiently strongly appealed and those who through age or infirmity have become forgetful that so frequently are the victims of their own exposure to danger-danger which ipso facto is present whenever a ton or so of steel is set in motion. No amount of standing up for the rights of this or that class of road user will solve the problem of how to deal with this danger which has come to stay. Every effort of co-operation must be made by all classes of road user and each must be sympathetic to the other's difficulties-this may be merely the exercise of good manners, a quality of great practical value on the roads. Constant supervision of children by their parents or those responsible, segregation and the use of safeguards by compulsion where practicable or desirable, the mode of vehicle lighting and pedestrian identification-all these and many other factors may require consideration. The matter is urgent and we of the legal and medical professions should be pre- pared to offer every assistance from our wealth of unhappy experience in the cam- paign to check the loss of health and young life so vitally important to our people.

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