Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 15, 1954)
The Battalion’s Safety Edition Numeber 32: Volume 54 Battalion COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1954 The Life You Save May Be Your Own Price 5 Cents Aggie May Die In Holiday Crash Accidents Kill Three This Semester At Least Four Others Injured in Wrecks By HARRI BAKER Three A&M students have been killed in automobile ac cidents this semester, and at least four more injured. The dead are: Donald G. Dart, 20, killed Oct. 16 when his car turned over on Farm Road 60. William Taylor, 19, and Laird Hill, 19, killed Oct. 23 when their car crashed head-* into a truck near Corsi- on into a cana. The injured are: Clarence Hatcher, p a r a- lyzed from the waist down when his ear turned over on Fai'm Road CO. Don Schneider, cracked leg, cuts, and bruises, in the same accident. Jack Albert, badly cut arm and other cuts, in a headon collision near Dallas. Thomas Goldstone, cuts and bruises, when his car overturned on F and B road near the campus. The accidents: Dart and a girl were driving west on Farm Road 60 about 6:15 Saturday night, Oct. 16. Witnes ses in another car said the car Dart was in swerved ai'ound them at an “excessive speed” and then started turning over. The car, a 1954 convertible, roll- pd over two and a half times, throwing out both occupants. The rar apparently rolled over on Dart and crushed him, according to the highway patrolman who investiga ted the accident. Dart was dead on arrival at the hospital. He was a senior. Taylor and Hudson, both sopho mores, were going to Waco for the A&M-Baylor football game when the accident that killed them occurred. Their car apparently ran off the road and onto the soft shoulder. Trying to get back on the pave- ment, the driver lost control of tl*e car and hit an oil-field truck headon. ^The time was 9 p.m. Satui’day, Oct. 23. It was raining that night. Hatcher and Schneider were in jured Dec. 2, when their car over- tumed on Farm Road 60 after passing another car.* Hatcher’s condition is still un certain. A head injury received in the accident left him paralyzed from the waist down, but doctors say the paralysis may be tempor ary. He is still in a Houston hos pital. The driver of the car they were passing said they came by him “as fast as their car would go.” He estimated their speed at 80 miles an hour. *The car went off the left shoul der, and swerved back onto the highway. The witnesses said it looked like the di'iver then lost control of the car, and it rolled off the x’ight sjde of the highway. Both occupants were thrown out of the car. The accident occurred about 8:15 p.m. Albert was injured in a headon collision near Lake Dallas Oct. 22, (See A&M ACCIDENTS, Page 4) Higher Speeds In 1953 Cause Most Accidents The horsepower of modern automobiles is steadily in creasing, and, if you don’t be lieve it, consider as proof the fact that three out of ten fatal accidents last year were caused by excessive speed. State summaries for 1953 re ported that 35 per cent of all fa tal acidents were caused by speed ing, but they hasten to add that “Many fatal accidents involve two vehicles,” both of which could have been speeders. And another big killer, alcohol when mixed with gasoline, amount ed for 24 out of 100 fatal accidents last year. This includes both mo torists and pedestrians. One fallacy among drivers is the belief that many accidents are caused by automobiles in an unsafe condition. Statistics for 1953, though, seem to show that this causes a minor portion of the ac cidents: 94 per cent of the vehic les involved in fatal accidents have no unsafe conditions. DEATH CAR—This is the car in which A&M senior Don Dart was killed Oct. 16. The convertible rolled over two and a half times, crushing Dart under it. A girl was also in jured in the accident. In Past Five Years City Accidents Increase Accidents in College Station have been increasing in the past five years, according to Lee Norwood, College Station chief of police. “In the last 18 months there have been more accidents than we had in the nine years previous,” he said. Thirty-three accidents in College Accidents Caused By Carelessness By DON SHEPARD Most accidents that happen on the A&M campus, or anywhere, according to Bennie A. Zinn, chair man of the accident prevention committee, ai'e caused by “pure carelessness.” Zinn estimates that an average two to three hundred accidents in volving A&M students and faculty members occur each month. From Nov. 19 until Dec. 1, Zinn said, 196 students were treated in the college hospital for cuts, bruises, and fractures. A big per cent of these accidents, Zinn point ed out, were suffered while work ing on the bonfire, but most of them were caused by carelessness. Several students are hurt each month while participating in intra mural sports. Last month 16 such injuries occurred, most from play ing football. Zinn explained that most of these accidents did not actually happen in intramux-al competition, but dui'- ing px - actice. Motor Vehicles Lead In Number of Deaths Motor vehicles were the leading cause of deaths in the United States last year, killing 38,300 persons and injuring 1,350,000 others. '* And in addition to the cost in terms of lives and suffer ing, traffic accidents ran up a bill of $4,300,000 in property damage. Included in the death total are 8,200 motorists of the 15-24 age bracket— the age covering most college stu dents. Texas ranks 14th in national motor vehicle deaths, with 28.2 persons being killed last year for each 100,000 popula tion. In this state last year, 2,368 persons met death violent ly in motor vehicle accidents. If you are an out-of-state student, you have a slightly better chance of making it home safely during the holidays, since 81 per cent of the drivers involved in fatal accidents were residents of the state in which the accident occurred. In fact, 21 per cent lived within 25 miles of the accident. “Flag football,” Zinn said, “is x’eaching the point whex-e it is al most tackle without pads. Stu dents should x'ealize that they ai’e not properly px-otected to play the rougher type of the sport when they are wealing only tennis shoes and gym shorts.” To remedy the situation, Zinn suggests better safety education, and a closer following of the 1‘ules. Physical education instxuctoi’S, dor- mitox-y counselors and unit com manders should lectux-e student athletes on safe practices, he added. To cut down on these careless accidents, Zinn said, the accident pi’evention committee takes a sur vey of various phases of student activities in which students are injured, and turns in a report pexi- odically to the committee. The committee is composed of a military department representative, one faculty member from each school, members of the physical plants office and Building and Col lege Utilities depai’tments, co-edi tors of The Battalion, cadet col onel of the coi’ps, and a civilian student representative. To prevent accidents the commit tee has erected stop signs at dan gerous college intersections, devel oped a systematic accident repoi’t, arx-anged for poi'table stop signs to be used to protect the cox-ps while marching to meals, launched a campaign against broken bottles in dormitories, investigated ways to eliminate injuries in inti’amui’als, and is now working with campus secui'ity and physical plant depart ments on traffic safety on the cam pus. “We’ve tried several methods of accident prevention in the last few yeax-s,” Zinn said, “but the system we are using now, where each de partment is striving to cut its own accident toll and helping with guid ance and cooperation has proved to be most effective.” Station have been investigated so far this yeax-, said Cui’tis Bullock, College Station patrolman. There wei'e probably other minor ones that wex-e not reported he added. One fatal accident oceui-red this year just outside • the city limits, he said. The city has made an effoi’t to counter the increasing accident rate. Around 20 stop and waxming signs wex-e put up this yeai% ac- coi’ding to Ran Boswell, city man ager. College Station policemen work closely with college campus security officers and Bryan police, he said. Bullock has oi’ganized a junior safety patrol at A&M Consolidated elementary school. The patrol be gan its first year of operation in 1953. The boys do not direct auto mobile traffic, bvxt help with pedes- tx-ians and bicycles coming to and going from the school gi-ounds. Bullock supeiwises them each day. Bullock also dix-ects a bicycle Women Safer Than Men At Wheel? Men always complain about women dx-ivers, but state sum- maxies for 1953 tend to show that women are the safest drivers. There were 4,100 women drivers and 41,700 men drivel’s involved in fatal accidents — oi’, the men had 10 times as many fatal accidents. How ever, there are 20 million x-eg- istei’ed women drivers com- pai'ed to 48 million for the men—ox-, the men drivers out number the women drivers 2 to 1. Based on mileage of the two sexes, the report says that al though the all-accident in volvement rate for women is higher, the fatal accident in volvement is lower. Big Crash Cause Weather conditions caused one- sixth of the tiuffic fatalities last year, with x’ain causing the most accidents. Poor weather was listed as the cause of one out of five of all accidents. In fatalities, rain was said to be the cause of three out of four of the bad weather accidents, and snow and fog accounted for the other foux-th. safety prograxn at the elementary school, which stai’ted in 1949. In 1950 there was no sponsor for the program, so it was not held. There were two bicycle accidents that yeai% one of which was serious. Since then, the program has been carried on each year, and there have been no accidents, said Bul lock. School children in the fii’st through fifth grades are in the program if they have bicycles. The boys and girls join the Bicycle Safety League, and get a member ship card. Pi-inted on the cax*ds ai’e x’ules and regulations of bicy cle safety. If they are caught in three violations of the safety rules during the school yeax*, they can not x’eceive the safety certificate given to students who have two or less violations. Last year, Bul lock gave out 496 certificates and not one student had three viola tions. “I expect to give out around the same number of eei’tificates this yeax*,” said Bullock. Each year i’ed reflector tape is put on each students bicycle. Tape this year was donated by the Lilly Ice Ci’eam company of Bi'yan. Almost Certain 9 Hickman Says By BOB BORLSKIE With 250 more cars leaving - the campus this holiday per iod than last year’s record 2,400 vehicles, it seems almost sta tistically certain that at least one Aggie will die a violent death in an automobile wreck, Fred Hickman, chief of campus security, said. “Last year I said we would be unusually lucky if we don’t have some Christmas fatalities,” Hickman said. “Well, we weren’t lucky. One student was killed and another ser iously injured.” The length of the holiday season, combined with the fact that most of the 2,650 cars registered on the campus will .be on the state highways some part of the holidays, ♦‘greatly increases the chances of at least one of them being involved in a fatal accident, he said. “Nothing would please me more than to be proved wi’ong, but unless all our dx-ivers exei’cise exti’eme caution for the entire two weeks, we ai - e going to have Silver Taps for someone when we get back.” Time Could Be Major Factor In Auto Safety Friday and Saturday most A&M students will begin leav ing the campus, most of them by automobile, and according to the statistics, the safety of these students depends partly on what time they do their didving. In 1953, for example, the safest time to di’ive a motor vehicle was between 4 and 8 a.m. ' Only 8.5 per cent of the fatal accidents oc curred dui’ing this pei’iod. Dur ing the period of November through January, 8.9 per cent of the fatalities happened in these pre-dawn hours. However, most of the students will be leaving between noon and 5 p.m.—the time when the highest pei’centage of fatal accidents oc cur. A glance at the statistics for last year show that traffic fatal ities have two things in common— the later it gets in the day and the later it gets in the year, the moi’e people get killed. A&M stu dents will be leaving the campus in December and many of them will be driving after dark. Mayor Proclaims Safe Driving Day College Station Mayor Ern est Langford proclaimed today as “Safe Driving day.” S-D day is being observed all over the country, sponsored by President Eisenhower’s Ac tion Committee for Traffic Safety and hundreds of local, state and national organiza tions. It is an effort to dem onstrate that traffic accidents can be reduced if everybody is careful and cooperative. Six Deaths A check of Aggie deaths during 1954 •revealed that six died in automobile accidents and many others were injui’ed. Property damage sustained in those acci dents and less serious ones from the point of physical injury can not be checked. People of college age usually are killed by their own careless ness, Hickman said. They over turn cars while traveling at an ex cessive rate of speed or they lose control and run off the road, ac cording to statistical recoi’ds. Accidents not involving other vehicles kill moi’e people in the 15 to 24 age group than any other type. Collision with other cars is the next ranking cause of death for this age group. Other Causes Pedesti’ian accidents rank third as a cause of death by automo bile in the college age group, and next is “running into a fixed ob ject.” The fixed object category covers telephone and light poles, tx*ees, buildings and other objects more x-esistant than automobiles. Collision with ti’ains, collision with bicycles and other mobile ve hicles make up the remainder of the list. “If each di’iver leaving the cam pus is determined to return after the holidays and di’ives according ly, then there’s a good chance they all will x’etum,” Hickman said, “but one careless moment for some Aggie can make the Christ mas season a tragic one for his loved ones.” TOTAL LOSS—Clarence Hatcher and Don Schneider were injured Dec. 2 when this car rolled. Hatcher is paralyzed from the waist down and Schneider suffered a cracked leg - , cuts, and bruises. “We don’t get many cars banged up like this one,” the wrecker driver Said.