Disastrous traffic-death tolls for August and September catapulted Virginia’s

Disastrous traffic-death tolls for August and September catapulted Virginia’s 9-month score to 49 above the 542 for the comparable period of 1960, Colonel C. W. Woodson, Jr. Superintendent of State Police and Chairman of the Governor’s Highway Safety Committee reported today.

During each of the two months, 20 more deaths occured than in their 1960 counterparts. August saw 74 and Septembtr 80. Particularly tragic were the deaths of 15 children 10 years of age and younger during September.

Unfortunately, the 1961 period saw 146 people die in 59 crashes which killed more than one person each as against 50 killing 108 for I960’ first nine months. Here, Colonel Woodson explained that the element of ill luck is present, since people who happen to be occupying the cars involved die through no fault of their own and with no opportunity of preventing the crashes.

Non-collision crashes, or those involving no contact with another car or solid object, ran to 199 which killed 221 people. The similar 1960 totals were 194 crashes and 212 deaths. This type of crash accounted for 36.3 percent of all crashes. “This terrible trend simply cannot be explained adequately,” Colonel Woodson commented. “At the end of 1960, Virginia saw her third consecutive year of death reduction and no serious upsurge was experienced until August, when we had every hope of overcoming the relative ,mall overage which existed. We can only point to the fast J that the tolls for August and September last year we.e wTell below average.”

Concluding rather pessimistically, Colonel Woodson stated that the 1961 score was still subject to some increase / due to late reports and deaths of those now carried as injured, which revert statistically to dates of injury and that initial reports indicate that the trend is continuing into October. **’ ■