The growth in the number of motor-vehicles continued unchecked and ultimately necessitated the promulgation of new rules under the Motor Vehicles Act in 1915. In 1909, the total number of motor-vehicles registered since 1905 was 1,295, while in 1915 this figure had increased to 4,947. But a good many of these gradually disappeared in the course of ten years, and the actual number estimated to be on the roads in 1915 was 2,482 as compared with only 814 in 1909. Heavy motor-vehicles of the lorry type also appeared during this period and numbered 70 in 1915. This increase of motor-traffic synchronized with, and was partly responsible for, a steady increase in the number of street accidents. While reckless driving was unquestionably the cause of many accidents, despite energetic action in several directions to prevent it, the large majority of the casualties reported from year to year were the outcome of that carelessness and lack of alertness on the part of the average Indian pedestrian, with which all who have driven cars or carriages in Bombay are only too well acquainted. Accustomed as they are to the peace of a sequestered country life, many of the foot-passengers in the streets of the city seem totally unable to exercise any caution or to acquire the habit of keeping to the side of the road, while in the case of the mill-workers, whom one meets in Parel and elsewhere, the sense of hearing seems to have been permanently dulled by the constant rattle and clatter of the machinery at which they labour during the greater part of the day.