Danger Units

"The energy to be absorbed if we strike an object while running 25 miles an hour is just the same as if we fell from a height of 20.9 feet ... it is possible to survive this impact although it is just about the shock limit for the human body ... we call this quantity . . . one Danger Unit."

Thus did Travelers Insurance Co. last week flip before U. S. motorists another semaphore to slow the speeding driver, who in 1938 was responsible for almost 27% of the 32,000 deaths and 17% of the 1,145,600 injuries in automobile accidents.

In a 36-page pamphlet titled Lest We Regret, Travelers' copy writers drove home the meaning of D. U. to the heavy-footed driver. Energy increases as the square of speed. Thus, if speed is doubled, energy is multiplied four times; if tripled, is multiplied nine times. If 25 miles an hour is the speed of one D. U., 35 is that of two, 50 miles of four, 60 of six and 75 of nine.

For motorists to whom these are simply figures, Lest We Regret offers practical illustrations:

> "Each D. U. Equals One Rollover. A car will roll over about once at 25 (on too sharp a turn), twice at 35, nine times at 75."

> "Striking a solid object at 25 will do you and your car about the same damage as if you had driven off a two-story building. Encountering a stone wall at 50 will be just as serious as if you had dropped from an eight-story building."

> "Each D. U. causes the car to require a longer turning radius ... for dry concrete pavement 80 feet longer for each D. U. carried. Thus you can make only one-fourth as sharp a turn at 50 as at 25; one-ninth as sharp at 75 as at 25."

> "We are plunging into danger twice as fast between 45 and 55, as we were between 35 and 45. ... It's the extra D. U. that gets you."

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