A General Survey of Traffic Accidents in Knoxville, Tennessee, for a Period of Six Months

[From the Introduction]

This thesis is a study of traffic accidents in the city of Knoxville, Tennessee. Traffic accidents in any city of approximately the same size as Knoxville present many problems. An effort has been made to present as many phases of such accidents as possible.

A study of this type in Knoxville has its peculiar difficulties. No consistent reports of accidents were made before January 1, 1933, when a plan was inaugurated calling for a report of every accident to be turned in as soon as possible to the Safety Bureau. However, reports were not required to be on any form blank or in any consistent form. As a result, many of the official reports are inaccurate and too brief to be of much value. Nevertheless, the study was made, based on all reports of traffic accidents which occurred in Knoxville between January 1 and July 1, 1933. During the six-months period there were 266 accidents reported by police officers. The accidents included in this study are supposed to be all of the traffic accidents that happened during the period named.

By a study of the 266 accidents, information concerning the following phases has been obtained: 1. Causes and types of accidents; 2. Prevention of accidents, safety measures, and improvement of traffic conditions; 3. Costs to the public ; 4. Insurance and compensations. From the information obtained concerning the four phases listed above, some generalizations have been made. No generalizations have been attempted, however, where the number of accident cases was not sufficient to justify generalizations.

A separate chapter is presented for each phase.