Death on the Roads: Changing National Responses to Motor Accidents

The new transport mode killed far more people than had railways and horse-drawn traffic. As motor vehicles spread, the death toll rose. By 1929 in the most thoroughly motorised country, the United States, motor accidents ranked tenth among the principal causes of death.1 Policy measures in the richer countries eventually restrained the growth of fatalities in road accidents during the 1970s, but by then the contagion had already infected poorer nations. A World Health Organization survey found, for fifteen developing countries in 1972, that road accidents accounted for almost 17 per cent of the total number of deaths studied, a value exceeded only by mortality from enteritis.2 Here we examine the various policies adopted in industrial states to control the problem and their effectiveness. We pay particular attention to the years between the World Wars in this rather anglocentric discussion because, despite the period’s poor reputation, motorisation then proceeded very rapidly and the road-accident problem assumed national importance for the first time. We focus on road deaths because the statistics are more comparable over time and between countries than those on road injuries.