Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 17, Number 7, DeMotte, Jasper County, 3 January 1947 — Road Deaths For ’46 Total 34,000 [ARTICLE]

Road Deaths For ’46 Total 34,000

Nation’s Highway Fatalities Return To Pre-War Status, Survevjjhows Chicago, Dec:*4id|R|j(|The nation will ring out 1946 with a total of approximately 34,000 traffic deaths for the year, the National Safety council said today. This is more than 5,000 higher than the 28,600 killed last year, when wartime restrictions limited travel, but substantially below the all-time high of 39,969 in 1941. Despite the high total, Council President Ned H. Dearborn estimated that 4,000 lives were saved during the year by a vigorous nationwide safety campaign launched by President Truman’s Highway Safety conference. If the traffic death rate for the first four months of the year had continued, said, the total would have been about 38,000. “However,” he said, “I don’t call a traffic death toll of 34,000 much of a success story.” New York, the nation’s largest city, had the highest traffic death toll rate, with 10.9 deaths for each 10.000 registered vehicles. Chicago, the nation’s second city, was second with a rating of 9 deaths. These cities of more than 500,000 population listed by the council. Still to die this year, the council said, are ‘about half of an estimated 130 persons who will be killed in traffic accidents New Year’s eve and Jan. 1, 1947.