Archive Report
Archive Report
Postwar Rise in Highway Casualties
Traffic deaths in 1952 are approaching the peak recorded in 1941, when 40,000 people were killed in automobile accidents in the United States. The growing toll is the result of the vastly increased use of the motor car since the end of the war. To meet the challenge of death and injury on the highway, an expanding nationwide program of accident prevention has enlisted the skills of high-ranking technicians from more than a dozen fields. Psychologists are studying driver behavior to determine the true causes of car crashes. Spectacular pile-up accidents on “foolproof” superhighways have brought reconsideration of their design features and yielded new knowledge for use in current construction on the national highway system. Safety leaders will bring organized ...