EXHIBIT 11 TRAFFIC CONTROL: THE NEEDS AND THE COST 1 In this article Howard Pyle, President of the National Safety Council, submits that adequate traffic control, though it will require large expenditure, will save its dollar costs many times over-besides serving humanitarian essentials which have first priority. He reports that the impact of rapidly increasing numbers of cars on the roads has produced a new crisis in accident prevention efforts, and that we are losing ground today. To reverse the trend he proposes, as a necessary and highly profitable financial investment, the outlay of half a billion dollars a year, to put into effect tested standards for safety on the highways. Mr. Pyle, before becoming President of the National Safety Council, was in turn Governor of Arizona and Deputy Assistant for Federal-State Relations to President Eisenhower. Traffic Control: the Needs and the Cost A Bargain Investment for America by Howard Pyle WHAT is a human life worth? Our forefathers believed it was worth the sacrifice of their own lives. In 1776 they spelled out their beliefs in unforgettable words: “... all men are created equal," . . . “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” . . . “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is a tragic commentary on our times that the pursuit of these rights should be allowed to take such an awful toll of human life along the nation's highways. Probably no other single invention has contributed so much to the modern American way of life as the automobile. Yet, with careless abandon we are permitting this highly essential machine to be identified with unnecessary death and suffering for thousands of our citi zens. Last year 43,600 died in traffic accidents. In 1 State Government, Summer 1964, p. 183. juries totaled 1,600,000, and 130,000 persons were permanently disabled. This is waste at its absolute worst. WHAT COULD BE SAVED At least half of those killed and permanently injured last year in traffic accidents would be active today, happy and well and leading useful lives, if our state and local governments had been willing to invest an additional $3 per year for every man, woman and child in the country to protect them from traffic accidents. The word "invest" is used advisedly. That is what the annual expenditure of some half a billion dollars, or about $3 for each member of our population, would amount to as the ex penditure necessary to gain application of the Action Program of the President's Committed for Traffic Safety, for maximum safety on ou highways. It is unconscionable that we are not fully applying the known corrective measure which could cut our annual highway slaughter by at least one-half. When we reflect that these methods have been known and proven for nearly twenty years, our neglect becomes even less defensible. Consider the cost of implementing the Action Program as an investment: Our annual traffic toll now costs us almost $8 billion each year. Cut the toll in half, and we would cut its costs in half. For the outlay of half a billion dollars we can save $4 billion-$4 billion that would be much better spent elsewhere than on the suffering and waste involved in preventable automobile accidents. The humanitarian considerations have top priority. But the money factor is also a bargain we cannot afford to pass up. It is an investment that would bring a return of 600 to 700 per cent-a yield that is practically impossible to obtain today in any form of endeavor. A CRISIS IN PREVENTION We have reached a crisis in our traffic accident prevention efforts. If we do not step up these efforts, we are certain to be overrun by the sheer force of numbers, and our annual traffic fatalities will approach 50,000, 60,000 and even higher. For more than twenty years we were able to contain traffic deaths and hold them below the prewar peak of 39,969, set in 1941. During the same period the motor vehicle population more than doubled, but the death rate per 100 million vehicle miles showed a constant decline. In 1962, however, this came to an end. For the first time in our history, traffic deaths climbed above the 40,000 mark, and the fatality rate, which had reached an all-time low of 5.2 in 1961, climbed back up to 5.3, the 1960 figure. Last year deaths continued upward, rising to 43,600, and the rate rose to 5.5. (See Chart I.) This year the situation is even worse. If the present rate of damage is allowed to continue, almost 50,000 persons could die in traffic accidents in 1964. The impact of numbers is making itself felt with devastating force. The chance of two-vehicle accidents multi plies at a rate faster than the increase in either the numbers of vehicles or miles traveled. Actually, accident exposures increase by approximately the square of the increase in numbers of vehicles. There were four times as many motor vehicles on our roads and highways in 1963 as in 1933, and there will be six times as many by 1975. In Chart II, the illustrations on the left symbolize these changes, with four vehicles shown for 1933, sixteen for 1963 and twenty. four for 1975. The illustrations on the right show the increased collision potentials. Still, the Annual Traffic Inventory of the National Safety Council indicates that only 56 per cent of the Action Program standards have been applied at the city level, and only 70 per cent at the state level. (See Chart III.) The Action Program brings to each governmental jurisdiction the best of fifty years of ideas, experience and research findings in traffic safety and management. It can be fully applied without violating any of the basic human rights inherent in our democratic society. It is a master plan that a city or state can follow in reducing its traffic accident problem. It deals with each separate function as defined through years of experience, but it emphasizes that all functions, such as enforcement, engineering and education, must be given equal emphasis. Thus it is a balanced program. The importance of this cannot be overemphasized. All experience shows that there is no single, simple solution to the traffic accident problem. Realistic enforcement, for example, without good engineering and education simply will not do the job. Here are the separate functions that comprise the Action Program • Accident Records • Traffic Engineering • Police Traffic Supervision • Driver Licensing • Periodic Motor Vehicle Inspection Traffic Courts • School Traffic Safety Education • Research • Public Safety Education • Safety Organization Enforcement Notable achievements have been made in recent years in police traffic supervision, but much more still remains to be done. There is still need for additional, carefully screened personnel with modern up-to-date training for supervisors, recruits and special provision for in-service training. Personnel must also have sufficient up-to-date equipment, such as vehicles, communications, radar, chemical test ing equipment, and the like. A stepped-up enforcement program aimed at the drinking driver is needed to bring the rising driving. while-intoxicated problem under control. In all, states and cities need an additional 24,400 policemen assigned to traffic supervision. This is an increase of some 20 per cent from the approximately 118,000 police personnel who are currently assigned to these duties. To bring police traffic supervision up to the minimum standards of the Action Program will require the expenditure of approximately $217 million annually. Driver Education New drivers, the result of the baby boom of World War II, are increasing at a rate three times faster than that of older drivers. Additional financial support in the amount of $62 million annually is needed for driver education if these young people are going to learn to drive properly. Presently about half of the eligible students are receiving no driver instruction of any kind. For about 10 per cent who are receiving instruction, this instruction is sub-standard in terms of time. More than 10 per cent of the nation's driver education teachers do not meet certification requirements. Half the states have financial support legislation, and in most of these a much higher percentage of students is enrolling for the recommended course than in those states without such support. A second major need in the area of driver education is the upgrading of traffic safety instruction for the 15 per cent of the nation's pupils who are now attending nonpublic schools. Engineering Building the 41,000-mile national system of interstate and defense highways is well under way. However, when completed, it will carry only 20 per cent of the nation's vehicular traffic. Thus, the 31 million miles of existing streets and highways must also be upgraded to help reduce congestion and accidents. This upgrading will require greater attention to the amount and quality of traffic operations management, particularly for smaller cities, towns and counties, and administration by experienced traffic and planning engineers. Much of this service to smaller communities should be provided by state and county highway departments, since local, state and county routes will require coordinated treatment and planning, with responsible agencies of government providing funds for installation of needed engineering improvements. At least 1,700 additional men, at an annual cost of upwards of $15 million, are needed for engineering functions. So far we have touched on only three areas of the overall program-the area of the three E's-engineering, education, and enforcement. But these three areas alone need 60 per cent of the half billion dollars that we must spend annually if we are to bring the accident problem anywhere near under control. Other Aspects Another $200 million should be expended annually for carrying out engineering recommendations, for improved driver licensing procedures, motor vehicle inspection, more accurate and useful accident record keeping, improved traffic courts, and for improved traffic safety programs in counties and cities under 5,000 population—which are difficult to evaluate precisely because of lack of adequate reporting procedures. Only eighteen states and the District of Columbia now have motor vehicle inspection programs. Almost half of the vehicles inspected in 1962 were rejected for one or more defects bearing on safety. Every state should have a compulsory motor vehicle inspection program. While all cities and states have some type of system for collecting and maintaining information on their traffic accident experience, which performs satisfactorily insofar as general information is concerned, much remains to be done to improve the reliability, the availability, and the use of traffic accident data for planning purposes by engineering, education and enforcement officials. States, moreover, must assume more responsibility for bringing assistance to |