HIGHWAYS: A Little Less Death

Giving way to highway spot checks and roadblocks, wolf-pack state troopers and more alert state and local officials, the U.S.'s traffic-death toll declined by some 12% during October. The month's 3,450 traffic-death total reversed a steady, month-by-month (for 19 months) increase, said the National Safety Council. If the trend to more careful driving continues, the U.S.'s road toll for 1956 should hold below the council's earlier death estimate of 42,000—the population of Greenwich, Conn., Oshkosh, Wis. or Vancouver, Wash.