History

The world’s first road traffic death involving a motor vehicle is alleged to have occurred on 31 August 1869.An Irish scientist Mary Ward died when she fell out of her cousins' steam car and was run over by it.

German-English composer George Frideric Handel was seriously injured in a carriage crash in 1752.

The British road engineer J. J. Leeming, compared the statistics for fatality rates in Great Britain, for transport-related incidents both before and after the introduction of the motor vehicle, for journeys, including those once by water that now are undertaken by motor vehicle: For the period 1863–1870 there were: 470 fatalities per million of population (76 on railways, 143 on roads, 251 on water); for the period 1891–1900 the corresponding figures were: 348 (63, 107, 178); for the period 1931–1938: 403 (22, 311, 70) and for the year 1963: 325 (10, 278, 37).Leeming concluded that the data showed that "travel accidents may even have been more frequent a century ago than they are now, at least for men".

In 1969 a British road engineer, compared the circumstances around road deaths as reported in various American states before the widespread introduction of 55 mph speed limits and drunk-driving laws.

'They took into account thirty factors which it was thought might affect the death rate. Among these were included the annual consumption of wine, of spirits and of malt beverages — taken individually — the amount spent on road maintenance, the minimum temperature, certain of the legal measures such as the amount spent on police, the number of police per 100,000 inhabitants, the follow-up programme on dangerous drivers, the quality of driver testing, and so on. The thirty factors were finally reduced to six on elimination of those which were found to have small or negligible effect. The final six were:

• (a) The percentage of the total state highway mileage that is rural.
• (b) The percent increase in motor vehicle registration.
• (c) The extent of motor vehicle inspection.
• (d) The percentage of state-administered highway that is surfaced.
• (e) The average yearly minimum temperature.
• (f) The income per capita.

'These are placed in descending order of importance. These six accounted for 70% of the variations in the rate.