Four miles an hour
The largest counter on the accident column is about 1.2 million deaths a year. The car in the first British petrol-car pedestrian death was doing a walking pace.
This counter is about 1.2 million deaths a year. The WHO's current fact sheet puts the same toll at about 1.16 million, so the round on the card still holds. More than half of those people were walking, cycling, or on a motorcycle. About 92% died in low- and middle-income countries, which have about 60% of the world's vehicles. For people aged 5 to 29 it is the leading cause of death. The story that stands in for all of that is one afternoon in a park in London, England.
The terrace
On 17 August 1896 Bridget Driscoll, of Old Town, Croydon, in England, was in the grounds of the Crystal Palace in London. A demonstration car was giving rides along the terrace. A passenger on it told the inquest the order of what she saw. The car had already been round once. Halfway round again, the driver shouted “Stand back.” The car swerved. The two women with Driscoll moved clear. Driscoll hesitated, and the car struck her. She died of a fractured skull. The driver said he had rung his bell and was doing 4 miles an hour. A witness at the same hearing called that pace reckless, like a fire engine.
The inquest was held at Penge, in England, by the coroner, Percy Morrison. The jury watched the car driven over the same ground, and returned accidental death, with no negligence found in the driver. Morrison is reported to have said he hoped such a thing would never happen again. That sentence is in later retellings. The contemporary report of the hearing does not contain it, so it stays a report, not a quotation. The verdict is not in doubt.
Not the first machine
She was the first pedestrian killed by a petrol car in Britain. She was not the first person a motor vehicle killed. On 31 August 1869 Mary Ward was thrown from a steam carriage at Birr, in Ireland, in what was then King's County, and died almost at once. The carriage had been built for the Earl of Rosse. The inquest called it an accidental fall.
Every twenty-six seconds
At the rate on this card, a death passes about every twenty-six seconds. Most of those people were not inside a car. Most of them died in countries that did not build the vehicle or the road. The 4 miles an hour is the detail that makes the first death feel quaint. The quaintness is the mistake. The falls that follow a crash, or that happen with no vehicle at all, are a different card, told in Fifty-seven metres.
This is not safety advice. It is a story about a population statistic. It says nothing about any one person's risk on a particular road.
Sources
- The Guardian's reprint of the inquest report, 26 August 1896.
- The Dictionary of Irish Biography on Mary Ward, killed at Birr, in Ireland, on 31 August 1869.
- The WHO fact sheet on road traffic injuries, including the figure of about 1.16 million.
- The annual figure used on the counter is the Ledger's own rounding, set out on the methodology page.