How the President's Committee for Traffic Safety Functions W. R. Hearst, Jr. T SHOULD BE UNDERSTOOD at the start that the President's Committee for Traffic Safety recognizes, as all roadbuilders do, that the basic purpose of constructing streets and highways is to provide facilities for the movement, by motor vehicle, of people and goods. The committee, like all roadbuilders, also recognizes that these facilities cannot serve their full purpose unless people and goods are moved efficiently and safely. And that, in one sentence, is why the committee exists. health, education and welfare, who In the course of a great deal of travel, I am continually being asked: What is the President's Committee for Traffic Safety? What is its purpose? How does it operate? How do we go about it? We do it by relying upon the national non-profit organizations that make By way of answering, it may be well to begin by telling what we are not. We are not an operating body. It would be more accurate to call us "getters done," rather than doers. We devote ourselves to getting things done by organizations that have the talent, the resources and the experience to do them well. Background The committee was established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in April, 1954, as a direct result of the White House Conference on Highway Safety earlier that year. The committee was continued and enlarged by President John F. Kennedy through an executive order on Jan. 13, 1960. In addition to the writer, as chairman, the membership now consists of 18 prominent citizens and public officials appointed by the president, plus the secretaries of commerce, defense, labor, and FOR TR abundantly qualified to work toward the attainment of safer and more efficient streets and highways. COMMITTER TRAFFIC SAFETY The Action Program Our guide in everything we door, more strictly, get others to dois the Action Program. Let's have a brief look at it. It is very distressing to find so many people who aren't familiar with it. This program actually had its beginnings 40 years ago at the first National Conference on Street and Highway Safety, which was I called by the late President Herbert Hoover at the time when he was secretary of commerce. Committees of experts in the various fields of traffic-accident prevention were set up to survey and analyze what was being done throughout the country in engineering, laws, enforcement, education and so onto learn what approaches were proving most effective and what ones were not, and what was needed to bring about improve up our advisory council. There These organizations bring to the 1 BETTER ROADS, Jan. 1965, p. 13 ment. Over the ensuing years the problems of traffic-accident prevention and the means of coping with them were studied in depth. Old methods were improved. New ones were developed and tested. But it wasn't until 1946 that all this knowledge was brought together for the benefit of the entire nation. It was then that President Harry S. Truman called his President's Highway Safety Conference in Washington, D. C. It was attended by representatives of every state. Through these organizations, we have mobilized forces that are Then and there, all of the suc cessful methods and techniques that the experts had been develoning and testing for more than 20 years were assembled into a single package, which was designated the "Action Program." This program was revised slightly in 1949 and updated in 1960 to incorporate certain new techniques. It stands today as the most comprehensive compilation of traffic-accident prevention measures ever developed. All Elements Necessary In recognition of the fact that there is no single solution to traffic accidents, the action program gives equal emphasis to all functions of accident prevention. When applied, all of its elements fit together in a balanced program. These are the elements: Laws and Ordinances. Traffic-Accident Records. Education. Engineering. Motor-Vehicle Administration. Police Traffic Supervision. Traffic Courts. Public Information. Organized Citizen Support. Research. An eleventh section-Health, Medical Care and Transportation of the Injured-is in preparation. We are proud of this program. It is a sound, proved guide that all states and communities can follow to increase the safety and efficiency of traffic movement. If it is to reach its full potential, it must be borne in mind-by officials and citizens alike-that all of its elements are necessary; that each is dependent upon the others. The engineer, for example, can design and build the world's finest thoroughfare. But it cannot be as safe as it should be unless there are sound laws, effectively enforced by the police and the courts. unless there is efficient accident reporting and proper use of good accident records, showing where trouble is happening, so that corrective action can be taken. unless young people have the right kind of safety and driver education, and unless the licensing power is used effectively as an instrument to bring about improvement in drivers' skills, knowledge and attitudes. And, unless an informed public gives organized backing to sound safety measures, and unless there is never-ending research to produce still better measures. Promoting Application In promoting the application of the program and in developing citizen support for the responsible public officials, the President's Committee has neither the authority nor the desire to go into a sovereign state and try to tell people what to do. Rather, the action program can be given consideration by states and communities, which can seek technical assistance, if needed, from advisory-council organizations. We try to encourage this by getting people throughout the nation to know about the action program, what its application can mean to them and how they can help bring about fuller and more effective use of the recommendations in the program. In fiscal year 1963-1964, for example, we initiated one national and 12 regional conferences to develop support and understanding for public officials with traffic responsibilities. There was a Conference for Women's National Organizations on Efficient Highway Transportation and the Reduction of Traffic Accidents. This was followed by two regional conferences for state officers of these national organizations and other women's groups. There were four regional workshops on driver education for citizen leaders. Of particular significance to road planners and builders were the six regional conferences for state legislators. The interest manifested by the lawmakers who participated in these conferences was very heartening, indeed, for they are the ones to whom administrators must look for the authority and the money they must have to carry out their duties. The 13 conferences during 19631964 offer good examples of how the President's Committee operates. We approved the calling of the meetings; in fact, we called them. But we did not develop the We did not prepare programs. the materials. We did not conduct the gatherings. On the contrary, the entire job was done by 24 advisory council organizations, subject to our prior approval of their plans. The same has been true of other projects that have been carried out during the 10 years of the commit Automotive Safety Foundation* Automotive Service Industry Association Bureau of Public Roads* Chamber of Commerce of U. S. A.* Institute of Traffic Engineers Insurance Institute for Highway Safety* International Association of Chiefs of Police National Association of Automotive Mutual Insurance Cos. National Association of Fleet Administrators National Association of Independent Insurers National Association of Insurance Agents National Association of Motor Bus Owners National Commission on Safety Education National Safety Council* Outdoor Advertising Association of America U. S. Public Health Service* *Executive Committee tee's existence. All of them have been directed toward stimulating broader and more effective implementation of the action program. By following this policy we have been able to draw upon the great reservoir of executive and technical talent-of knowledge, experience and material resources-that the advisory council's member organizations have developed. We have been able to utilize the momentum available in their established programs. Our function-and it has proved to be an extremely valuable onehas been to serve as an instrument through which national organizations, representing both public officials and private citizens, can work together toward a common end, with the prestige and interest of the president in the forefront of these efforts. Role of Highway Departments In the unending quest for safer and more-efficient streets and roads, the role of state and county highway departments will always be a tremendously important one. They are responsible for building and maintaining all but a fraction of our 3,500,000 miles of urban and rural roadways. Mindful of this, the writer's earnest hope is that all administrators and key personnel in these highway departments will familiarize themselves with at least the engineering section of committee's action program. This is not a manual on design, construction and maintenance. It is an invaluable guide to the best principles involved in these functions, prepared by men of the highest competence from all over the country who have devoted their lives to highway, traffic and vehicle engineering. It is hardly necessary to go into the design features that are making our new highways, especially the freeways, safer and more efficient; or is it necessary to call attention to the need for incorporating these features into many of the heavily traveled highways that do not now have them. There is, however, a continuing necessity to call for recruits in the cause of highway planning, particularly in the light of the progres sive concentration of population in urban centers and the development of sprawling metropolitan areas. Some states and metropolitan areas are evolving excellent programs, but a great deal more is required in most places. The need is for comprehensive, cooperative planning by state, county and municipal authorities in federal-aid highway projects in urban areas. All urban transportation elements need to be brought together within the framework of community planning. Time and time again, piecemeal efforts have proved to be disappointing and costly, The type of planning required was well stated by Federal Highway Administrator Rex Whitton in the remarks he made before the previously mentioned national conference for women, which was held in Denver, Colo.: "It needs to take into account the economy, population and land use of the area, present and future, and social and esthetic factors as well. It means estimating future needs for both public and private movement of both people and goods. And it means that all of the area that will be affected-as it may develop during the forecast period -should be included." Highway planners and motortransport authorities are agreed that this kind of urban transportation planning must embrace the balanced-program concept of traffic-accident prevention. All of this ties in with the primary goal of the President's Committee for Traffic Safety: the safe and efficient transportation of people and goods on the nation's streets and high ways. Our immediate goal is intensification of activity, in every state, county and community, to bring about-now-more effective application of the proved accidentprevention measures of the action program. In view of our third consecutive year of mounting traffic fatalities, the need is obviously urgent. Our long-range goal is the stimu lation and encouragement of more research to find better ways of dealing with this many-sided problem. We are determined to attain both. P. B. Mutrie Motor Transportation & Prof. Amos E. Neyhart EX OFFICIO MEMBERS Hon. Anthony Celebrazze Hon. Luther H. Hodges Hon. Robert S. McNamara Hon. W. Willard Wirts *Chairman, Governors' Conference In the photograph, President Johnson holds a copy of the report from his Committee for Traffic Safety, summarizing the extent of application of the Action Program for Highway Safety. Next to the President is Committee Chairman W.R. Hearst, Jr. With them, left to right, are William S. Foulis, Committee Executive Director; and J.O. Mattson, Executive Committee Chairman of the Committee's Advisory Council. On September 10, 1964, following receipt of the report, the President issued a public statement, emphasizing "the need for stepped-up activity to curb traffic accidents." Excerpts from the President's Statement "It is self-evident that we must expand and intensify our efforts to prevent these accidents. "Toward that end, it is indispensable that we initiate greater research into the causes and means of preventing accidents. "We need the active participation of the best minds in the colleges and universities in all of our States. We need to enlist researchers in all of the sciences: medicine, law, engineering, psychology, public information every field that can help us to learn more about human behavior, and to develop new means of increasing the safety of highways and vehicles. "I am asking the Committee to report back to me as soon as it can as to the current status of traffic safety research in these fields, and what should be done to stimulate broader activity." |