The best that can be said for this question is "at least you can have a guess". But not everyone likes to guess; some of us think that a quiz should be a test of what you actually know.
Given that we're told it was during the Second World War, it's really just a case of "pick a year between 1939 and 1945". How many of us know when blackouts were introduced – even if we realised that this was what led to the peak?
It might have been better not to mention the war in the question, but to give leeway (say, three years either way – 1938 to 1944). That way, if you knew it was during the war, you'd almost certainly get the points.
9,169 people died on Britain's roads in 1941. The highest toll in peacetime was 7,985 in 1966 (the World Cup win may have been a factor, but the introduction of the Breathalyser and compulsory wearing of seat belts are more likely to have been the catalyst for the subsequent decline in numbers). Numbers fell below 2,000 for the first time (since 1926, when records began at 4,886) in 2010. They were fairly constant through the 2010s, with a slight increase in 2019 to 1,870 (from 1,782 in 2018).
© Macclesfield Quiz League 2020