Abstract :
In order to obtain, if possible, some definite measure of the value which should be attributed to the proper illumination of streets as a factor in the prevention of traffic accidents, a comprehensive survey was undertaken, the results of which are given below. To obtain as high a degree of uniformity as possible in the collection of the data, blank forms were prepared providing for a charting of all traffic accidents in a given city during the period of one year and for distributing them as to the month and hour of the day at which each occurred, with notations as to whether or not the accident resulted in a fatality. A representative group of cities was selected and individuals in each who were known to be interested in problems of public safety were requested to arrange for the tabulation of the, data. The work of tabulating accidents from the city records was often tedious on account of the way in which the accident reports were filed. In some instances the accident data were not available. The very cordial response to the request for cooperation in this survey is, however, attested by the fact that tabulated reports in form to be directly applied were obtained from 32 cities with a combined population of over 7,000,000. From each of these cities the report covered a full year´s accidents; in most cases during the period from the middle of 1919 to the middle of the year 1920. The names of the cities and an abbreviated summary of the tabulation for each city are given in Table I. The total number of street traffic accidents reported for one year in these 32 cities was 31,475 of which 9,534 or 30.3 per cent occurred during hours of darkness. It was anticipated that there might be considerable variations in conditions existing in individual cities located in different states and it was, therefore, particularly desired to obtain a sufficiently diverse group of cities including a large enough total of population to give the presumption of a reasonable degree of acc- racy in the results.
