§ Mr. PEATasked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that a number of recent road accidents, resulting in fatalities and injuries to motorists as well as damage to property, have been found by the competent inquiring authority to be due to the skidding of motor vehicles on slippery roads; that in certain of these cases the slippery condition of the roads has been due to the attrition of the surface; that many hundreds of miles of roads that would normally have been sprayed with tar or some other bituminous compound and dressed with hard stone chippings last summer were not so treated; and what steps he proposes to take to call the attention of road authorities to this matter?
§ Lieut. - Colonel HEADLAM:The Ministry of Transport issued a Circular in March, 1929, concerning methods of surface treatment, and a substantial decrease in the number of accidents attributable to slippery road surfaces was noticed. I have no information indicating an increase in the number of such accidents. On grounds of economy there may have been some reduction in the mileage of roads surface-dressed during last summer, but I am not aware of any neglect on the part of highway authorities to take precautionary measures against any dangerous condition of their roads.