The numbers of road accidents and casualties occurring at night during the winter of 1963-1964 and during the comparable months of 1961-1962 have been studies by the Road Research Laboratory is about 60 large towns of Great Britain, about half of which conducted dipped headlights campaigns in 1963-1964. A detailed assessment of the 1963-1964 campaign in Birmingham was arranged by the laboratory but was abandoned, with the agreement of the city's dipped headlights Campaign Committee, because several major road and traffic changes had occurred between the comparison periods, including reconstruction of the city centre, the introduction of parking meters, and various road safety measures. These made the separate evaluation of the effect of dipped headlights impossible. An appendix to this technical Paper contains the Birmingham accident data and shows that if the effects of the other changes, excluding those of dipper headlights there was no significant improvement in night accident frequency in Birmingham during the 1963-64 campaign. As an alternative to Birmingham, a detailed investigation of the campaign held in Bristol was carried out. This showed that, compared with a similar town without a campaign (Southampton), there was no significant improvement in total accidents in the dark in Bristol during the campaign. On roads not well-lit, however, pedestrian accidents were reduced significantly by 60 percent; other accidents on these roads tended to increase less that on similar roads in Southampton. On well-lit roads in Bristol both pedestrian accidents and other accidents tended to increase more than in Southampton. The differences between the changes in accidents in Bristol and Southampton, however, could have occurred by change.
Samenvatting