By RUSSELL M. ARUNDEL
The clocks of a thousand cities chime five each afternoon. Stores and offices pour out millions of tired, homeward-bound workers, and in the crowded streets children start one final hour of play before dinner. America's most dangerous hour has arrived.
Ambulance drivers inspect their mounts to see that everything is in readiness; hospital attendants give the operating rooms a final look-over, and in garages, the wrecking cars are wheeled to the front. For the next sixty minutes the bulk of the day's traffic accidents will happen. More lives will be snuffed out, more people will be injured, and more automobiles destroyed than in any other hour of the day—more in fact than in several of the early morning hours combined.
Some place between the Atlantic and the Pacific, some one is being killed or injured in a traffic accident at the rate of one victim every forty-two seconds of the day. But when the statistics are plotted, the chart shows that, instead of an even distribution of deaths and injuries, they reach their peak in that one crowded hour, when senses have been dulled by a hard day's work, and reach their minimum just before dawn when most people are home in bed.
Three times as many casualties resulting from highway accidents occur in a single year in the United States than were suffered by the American forces during their entire participation in the World war. During 1926, approximately 25,302 persons were killed and 759,060 were seriously injured in these accidents. An estimate issued by the American Roadbuilders' association lists the principal causes as inattention; children playing in the street; speeding; adult jay-walking and violation of the traffic laws. Of the total number of accidents occurring last year approximately 11,183 were caused by motorists: 10,805 were the result of improper conduct on the part of pedestrians and 3,314 were caused principally by physical conditions.
Research has uncovered many peculiar facts in regard to the causes and results of highway accidents. The knowledge of these facts has given national organizations interested in the public-safety movement a basis upon which to work and is expected to bring a noticeable reduction in accident casualties within a few years. Paramount among the conclusions that have been drawn from statistics collected from various rural districts and municipalities are:
That the largest number of accidents occur between five and six in the after-
