Mr. PYLE. But as long as they are going to drink anyway, which seems to be a national pastime in this country, we estimate there are 100 million people in the United States using alcohol.

We tried the Volstead Act once upon a time and we didn't do well with that. We have to live with the fact of drinking and make it serve our ends as much as our pleasures.

Mr. Chairman, I trust this information has been helpful. We will supplement the statement which we have made.

Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. I want to thank you, too, Governor for your appearance here today. Your organization is one of the finest organizations in the country, and it is represented by real people, people who know the business.

You have all the answers right at your finger tips. It has been a pleasure to have you here.

I am looking at this clock. Mr. Toms, the Administrator, of the Highway Safety Administration, testified last Thursday. Starting at 10 o'clock he put that clock up there, and from Thursday, 10 a.m. until 10 o'clock this morning, we have had 720 deaths on our highways, and over 30,000 people injured.

We are slaughtering over 55,000 people a year. I think that figure we had that same figure in about 1969 when we only had about 80 million automobiles. Today, we have 110 million automobiles on our highways, and I think you are doing a good job, and the money we have spent is doing a good job.

But we should cut that in half, as you say. I am happy to have had you people here.

Mr. Lloyd Rivard has a question or two.

Mr. RIVARD. This morning we heard testimony from the traffic engineers who recommended a needs study that would take about 2 years to establish the safety needs of the country. What is your opinion of that, or do you think, from what you have said, that there is enough knowledge on hand to go ahead?

Mr. PYLE. Let me answer you this way, Mr. Rivard. I would like to see us make top use of what we already know, and I think that we know a great deal more than we are currently making use of.

Now, there is going to be a continuing need for constant study, particularly in the engineering arena, and with respect to the automobile, human behavior, and all of the other related elements. We will never be able to stop that. It is like going to school.

We are constantly going to school on what we learn, as a result of what we have done along the way. What effect has it had? What do we conclude as a result of what we have done?

I don't know exactly what the testimony this morning referred to. I suppose, since it is engineering oriented, it probably is in that general vein. But our plea is to get on with what we already know, without fail, and then to implement every continuous effort we can to learn more and more from our experience.

We never can stop further study, because what may be a fact today may not be the same fact tomorrow.

Mr. RIVARD. What is the viewpoint of the council on the consolidation of the present 16 standards into the nine standards now being proposed?

Mr. PYLE. I am going to ask Mr. Hill, who is a specialist in that arena in our shop, to comment on this, if I may.

Paul, you, I think, have an excellent slant on that.

Mr. HILL. We have been working with the 16 standards since they were issued, and we have learned to live with them, learned to use them. We think the general public, public officials at the State and community level, have become familiar with them.

In fact, if changing the standards or so consolidating them would in any way take away from the meaningfulness of existing standards, we would not be in favor of such change.

If it can be proven that pulling one or two of these standards into other existing standards would make them every bit as workable, we would have no objection to that.

Let me give you a specific example, Mr. Rivard. Take the motorcycle standard. We are going to solve what we are after in safe motorcycling when the enforcement people do their job, the educators do their job, the manufacturers do their job, the inspectors do their job, and the courts do their job.

Now, if that standard can be so fit into these other really broad categories of standard development and program standards, fine, we would have no objection.

Mr. RIVARD. Thank you.

In the breakdown that Mr. Clausen talked about of urban and rural, your breakdowns roughly indicated that about twice the fatalities occur in rural areas as urban areas.

Mr. HILL. Correct.

Mr. RIVARD. Then the statistic comes up as 50 percent of the accidents being alcohol oriented.

Then we refer to the 35 programs, mostly in cities. Do you think that directing the ASAP program to an urban city operation in view of the predominance of rural deaths is the correct approach?

Mr. PYLE. Well, of course, the concentration of drinking is in the cities. There is no doubt about that. That is where the stuff is sold and dispensed and used in volume, where the masses of people are. I suppose getting from the bar on the corner 8 blocks away to your house or apartment isn't quite the problem that it is if you have a drink or two or three or four, whatever it is, in some roadhouse, and then you have to drive 15 miles to where you are going.

That gets to be a problem. That is why it is more of a problem in the rural area than it is in the urban areas. We, of course, have had lots of fault to find with the countermeasures program, but we have been trying to help in every way we can, because it is a positive step. It isn't perfect, but I don't know of anything that is.

So I have made trips to Kansas City, and here, there, and everywhere to help kick it off, even though in my heart I find fault in this program, for many of the reasons you have just alluded to. But you have got to crawl before you can run and walk, so we are doing our best to try to go along.

We have a monumental appreciation of how many different judgments there are about how to go in this program. You can toss it up for grabs anytime, and you can take any part of the thing when it comes down.

We attempted to coordinate a communications program with the U.S. Public Health Service, the American Medical Society, ourselves,

79-423 O 72 10

and the Department of Transportation. We worked for it 3 years, and never did get it coordinated.

Finally, we backed off one of our own, and they kicked off one of their own. None of us are in agreement about it. It is just one of those things.

Mr. CLAUSEN. Along that line, on page 41 of your fact report on accidents, the total deaths for 1970, I think you pegged them at 54,800, of which urban was 17,500, and rural was 37,300.

As you know, in the Highway Act in 1970, we incorporated a provision to change the formula after June 30, 1973, for the ABC program from what is now 50-50 matching to 70-30, and I offered that amendment in the committee, and the chairman in his usual congenial way was always constructive, was willing to accept it, and so we think we are on the right track, because this tends to document, Mr. Chairman, exactly what we foresaw, in writing the act, in 1970 before these statistics were out.

So we, in effect, have almost doubled the allocation formula. Do you think we are on the right track there?

Mr. PYLE. Absolutely. I should say for the record that these kinds of facts have been continuously available for a number of years. We try to make them available as we testify, but you run out of time after awhile, so you often overlook things that you would like to look into the record and you don't always get them in.

Mr. CLAUSEN. I am attempting to take advantage of you, one of the most respected organizations, which has done more in the area of statistics and facts than anyone I know of, to tie together to try to tie together what we in the committee are attempting to do, and get down into the record so as to back us up for whatever future fights there I will be on this.

Mr. PYLE. You can count on us to the limit of your facilities.

Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. Thank you. You've done a fine job. Again, I want to thank the National Safety Council, a great organization, represented by great people. Thank you, it is a pleasure to have you with us.

Mr. PYLE. Thank you sir.

Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. The hearing is adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.

(Whereupon, at 3:21 p.m., the committee adjourned, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Wednesday, February 23, 1972.)

1972 HIGHWAY LEGISLATION

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1972

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ROADS

OF THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC WORKS, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John C. Kluczynski, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.

Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. The hearings will come to order. This morning, the Subcommittee on Roads will continue its hearings on the highway safety program. We had some excellent testimony so far from the administration, the Institute of Traffic Engineers, and the National Safety Council.

Today we are going to hear from the people who are right on the firing line, the Governors' highway safety representatives. We are pleased to see that you have now organized into a formal setup such as the AASHO in the highway program. You are coming of age, and the subcommittee wants to do everything it can to help you get a job done.

Mr. Doug Toms, Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Administration, has installed in our hearing room a clock that records the number of persons injured or killed in traffic accidents. The totals registered since last Thursday are 864 persons killed; 34,860 persons injured.

We have been slaughtering 56,000 people on our highways, and it is up to us to do everything possible to cut down the deaths on our highways.

Mr. Schwengel, do you have any comments?

Mr. SCHWENGEL. I join the chairman in expressing a word of tribute first of all, a word of appreciation for the leadership of our chairman in calling this meeting and giving all of you and us who are interested in highway safety a chance to be heard on the record. In giving us the benefit of your experience and your studies and research we can more intelligently legislate in this area that needs our attention and needs our cooperation with you, with all of you, and you with us. As we together seek to resolve the serious problem of safety on our highways that will become worse unless we come to grips with the problem. The opportunity and responsibility is ours and we will respond, I'm sure.

So I am glad to join you, Mr. Chairman, in extending a welcome to these people and to give at the same time our assurances of our

concern.

Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. Thank you, Mr. Schwengel.

The witnesses this morning will be Cordell Smith, chairman of the National Governors' Conference, Highway Safety Representatives; accompanied by E. L. Peters, North Carolina; William Scheuermann, California; A. Ross Rommel, Texas; Fred W. Vetter, Delaware; and Noel C. Bufe, Michigan.

Gentlemen, will you kindly take the witness chairs and proceed as you may wish.

We are happy to have you here, and we want to hear your testimony. You are on our team. We are all going to try to help do something to give to the people of our country safer highways.

The Chair recognizes Mr. Wright, the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. WRIGHT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to express on behalf of those of us from my State the great pleasure we have in having with us today Mr. Ross Rommel, our State Traffic Safety Administrator.

He has been responsible under Governor Smith for implementing the Texas State traffic safety program.

We feel that it has been an extremely useful program. I think he will have much to say to the committee, as well as these other able administrators from other States. I express a welcome to him today. Mr. ROMMEL. Thank you.

Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. Mr. Smith, you may proceed as you wish.

STATEMENT OF CORDELL SMITH, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL GOVERNORS' CONFERENCE, HIGHWAY SAFETY REPRESENTATIVE; ACCOMPANIED BY E. L. PETERS, NORTH CAROLINA; WILLIAM SCHEUERMANN, CALIFORNIA; A. ROSS ROMMEL, TEXAS; FRED W. VETTER, DELAWARE; AND NOEL C. BUFE, MICHIGAN

Mr. SMITH. Thank you for your opening remarks, Mr. Chairman My name is Cordell Smith, Coordinator of Highway Safety for the State of Colorado. I also have the honor of serving as chairman of the National Governors' Conference, Highway Safety Representatives and as a member of the National Highway Safety Advisory Committee. With me here today are five colleagues who are also representing our conference, and will make presentations to you. They are:

Mr. E. L. Peters, Jr., Coordinator of the Governors' Highway
Safety program for North Carolina and vice chairman of
NCGHSR.

Mr. William F. Scheuermann, Jr., Director of Traffic Safety,
State of California and secretary-treasurer of NCGHSR.

Mr. A. Ross Rommel, Traffic Safety Administrator, State of
Texas.

Gen. Fred W. Vetter, Jr., secretary of public safety, State of
Delaware.

Noel C. Bufe, executive director of highway safety planning,
State of Michigan.

Mr. Chairman, in the audience are other Governors' representatives whom I should like to introduce to you, Mrs. Annie Laurie Gunter from the State of Alabama, Mr. Michael Ellis and Mr. Pat Colley from the State of Tennessee, and Mr. William S. Moore from the State of Mississippi.

Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. We are happy to have you all.