Road accidents
The sight of ambulances and police-cars racing to the scene of a road accident in the city or on the busy highway is so commonplace in modern countries that few heads turn even in idle curiosity. This is part of the tragedy of road accidents. They occur so often that they are taken for granted, and the general public has become conditioned to them. A murder, a fire or a riot is still front page news, but a serious motor accident resulting in ghastly injury and often loss of life hardly rates a small back-page paragraph except o the relatives of those involved, whose lies may be shattered and reduced to pitiful sadness, often poverty, by a few seconds of rending metal and shattering glass. No solution of the problem can help these individuals. There is indeed no cure, so there must be prevention, an the alarming increase in accidents shown by statistics makes the question of cure an immediate one. In most countries, the accident rate goes up roughly in proportion to the increase in the number of vehicles on the road, and there is every sign that in most modern countries, the numbers of both are steadily increasing.