EXHIBIT 36

In 1963 it is recorded that 43,600

Americans were killed in traffic accidents. That was 2,800 more than were killed in 1962 and 5,500 more than in 1961.

Even those inured to the continuing catastrophe of motor-vehicle casualties are startled by these figures. From 1936 through 1961 the annual death toll remained at about 38,000 per year, with fewer during World War II. In 1962 the toll jumped above 40,000 for the first time in history, and in 1963 it rose to approximately 43,600. The slaughter is continuing. The number killed in Iowa during the first four months of 1964 exceeded by 41 percent those killed in the corresponding period of 1963, and nationally the 1964 deaths were 1,600 more than 1963 for the same periods.

Increasing fatality rates

Of added significance are the corresponding changes in fatality rates. The number of fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles (mileage rate) rose from 5.2 in 1961 to 5.3 in 1962 to 5.5 in 1963. See Fig. 1. The current rate probably is considerably higher. As for the number of motor-vehicle deaths per 100,000 population, this increased from 20.8 in 1961 to 22.0 in 1962 to 23.1 in 1963; the rate for the first four months of 1964 was about 26.0.

The importance of these rates is that they show increases whereas the rates for many preceding years had been registering decreases. See Table I and Fig. 1. During those years most engineers, and others having responsibility for highway safety, took refuge behind the declining rates, calling attention to the fact that the safety situation was improving even though the actual number of fatalities was not being reduced. That is, although the

total for some particular year was again near 38,000, the rate per vehicle-mile dropped, say 3 percent below that of the previous year.

It is now evident that the situation is not improving; it is getting worse. Even before 1962 it could be said that:

1. Motor-vehicle accidents are the third leading cause of death in the United States.

2. More American lives have been lost in motor-vehicle accidents than in all the wars in which the United States has engaged.

3. More children die as a result of motor-vehicle accidents than from any other cause.

4. Half of the victims are in the prime of life, between 15 and 44 years of age. See Fig. 2.

5. From the social and economic viewpoint, motor-vehicle accidents could be considered the most serious cause of death and injury in the United States.

If reliable injury statistics were available, probably they would reveal a condition as grave as that shown by the fatality figures. Motor-vehicle accidents each year create hundreds of thousands of permanently disabled people and thousands of invalids. The National Safety Council estimates that, in 1963, 1,600,000 persons were injured badly enough to be disabled beyond the day of the accident, an increase of 100,000 over 1962. The Council placed the cost of motor-vehicle accidents at $7.7 billion against $7.3 billion in 1962.

"What is happening? What has caused the drastic increases in number of deaths and in death rates in 1962, 1963 and now in 1964?"

There must be some cause, some change accounting for the increased fatalities. The usual fact cited in the past-increased travel-will not fit, because the mileage rate has also increased. There does not seem to have been marked changes in the commonly charged causes of accidents: speed, alcohol and the like. Similarly, there do not seem to have been significant changes in the major types of accidents: single car, collision, or those involving pedestrians.

In highway engineering the most important difference between the years 1962-1963 and preceding years, is the opening of thousands of miles of Interstate highways and other high-type expressways far more of them than

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in any previous corresponding period. The question naturally arises, "Is the construction of the Interstate Highway System causing more people to die in motor-vehicle accidents?"

The answer, surprisingly, is "Perhaps," and this despite the fact that approximately 3,000 lives should have been "saved" in 1963 on the more than 15,000 miles of Interstate highways in service. If 3,000 lives were saved on the Interstate system last year, and it is likely that mileage-fatality rates would so indicate, then 5,800 additional people were killed elsewhere, because the total went up by 2,800.

There is a growing opinion that drivers get lulled into a sense of security on Interstate highways, do not change their awareness or driving methods or reduce speed appropriately when they leave the Interstate system. Consequently they have more accidents on nearby highways. There is some support for this opinion: the Bureau of Public Roads in a recent study found a fatality rate of 2.8 per 100,000,000 vehicle miles on 1,130 miles of Interstate highways against a rate of 9.7 on the older highways in the same traffic corridors.

It is possible that the new highways we are building to save lives are actually making the system as a whole more deadly.

What is being done

Concern and alarm have been expressed by the President of the United States, governors of many states, other public officials responsible for safety, and by organizations such as the National Safety Council. Surprisingly, there has been no expression of concern by major engineering groups including the responsible civil engineering organizations. The Highway Research Board has taken no special note of the situation, nor has the American Society of Civil Engineers although the Society recently adopted a policy on transportation and conducts major conferences on this subject.

The businesses of highway transportation-the automobile industry, petroleum industry, rubber manufacturers, highway contractors, equipment and material producers-have shown little interest in the situation. The general public, as individuals, shows much concern but no organized effort to

avoid the hazards; vehicle sales are booming and the mileage driven is greater than ever before.

President Johnson's proposed accelerated attack on traffic accidents has resulted in a recommendation by the Bureau of Public Roads for spot improvements at known high-accident locations on primary and secondary roads. This work is to be carried out under existing budgets with priority given to hazardous conditions.

The National Safety Council has proposed an intensive safety campaign which would cost upwards of $500,000,000 annually. Most of this sum would be spent in enforcement and educational activities. Many states and local governments have intensified their safety efforts this year, primarily in enforcement. In most cases this is only a matter of placing additional emphasis on special programs started in 1962 and intensified in 1963.

There is not much hope that the activities instituted or proposed thus far will produce lasting effects. The program recommended by the Bureau of Public Roads simply suggests accelerating work which the states have been doing for years, and since it must be carried out within fixed budgetary limits on both time and funds, it probably will accomplish little. As an emergency measure the National Safety Council's proposal has considerable potential but financing the program is likely to be very difficult.

Safety through automatic control

The editors of an excellent book, Automatic Control (Simon & Schuster), say, "Modern refineries and chemical plants must be placed under automatic control because they are built to carry on processes that are too complex, too fast and too dangerous for control by human beings except through the mediation of robots."

By analogy this statement supports the proposition that safety in highway transportation will be achieved only when most of the operation of vehicles is placed under automatic control. Further support comes from all major modes of transport of people-air, rail, and elevator. These media have been made safer only by taking away from the operator more and more of the operation of the vehicle and the decision making. Highway engineers are gradually turning to this viewpoint.

Last year Federal Highway Administrator Rex M. Whitton, F. ASCE, expressed the view that the driver is doing about as much as can be expected of him and that additional safety will have to be achieved via the vehicle and the road. The value of control is also illustrated by the effect of full control of access (Fig. 3).

The sense of proposals for traffic control systems can best be understood, perhaps, by an illustration of one approach to the problem. A highway could be arranged like a railroad with the lanes of the highway separated from each other as are railroad tracks. Devices corresponding to switches, turnouts, crossovers, etc., could be designed to provide for access, egress, and movements from lane to lane. Some equivalent of the railroad's traffic control and compliance enforcement system-the block system, centralized traffic control, complete automatic control-could be applied and presumably would yield equivalent safety.

Such an arrangement would be cumbersome and inefficient, and much better systems can be designed using more modern and sophisticated equipment, but an understanding of the goals of a control system is first required.

A mechanical guidance system

A guidance system is required. In 1963 over 31 percent of the deaths resulted from single-car accidents,

inost of them involving a car running off the road without having been involved in a collision, and most frequently on relatively level, tangent sections of road under good roadway and climatic conditions. A spacing system is required also to prevent a vehicle from colliding with another vehicle, a pedestrian, an animal or other object.

Some research has been done on automatic traffic control, and systems of various types have been evolved. One of the more interesting, and one that has perhaps been more highly developed than any other, is a concept of Dr. Vladimir K. Zworykin of the Radio Corporation of America. In his system cars would be guided by cables buried in the center of lanes, or other cables providing for access, egress, and passing. Safe intervals are maintained by electronic devices that can act on engines and brakes.

Dr. Zworykin's cables carry alternating current of moderate frequency. A pair of magnetic pickups, mounted on the vehicle, are utilized either to indicate to the driver his lateral position or to directly operate a power steering mechanism to keep the vehicle on track. Longitudinal spacing is controlled by signals received in the vehicle from detector units in and alongside the roadway.

The units in the roadway are rectangular loops of wire, about the length of a vehicle, spaced about 20 ft apart. The detectors are energized

imply by the passage of a car over hem. Thus every car, whether quipped with automatic devices or not, is followed by a "flying tail" of Aarning signals. Their amplitude increases as the car slows down and becomes maximum for a stopped car. Within one lane, when a following vehicle gains on its slow or stopped predecessor, the mechanism would first provide for passing, if the passing lane were clear, or for slowing or stopping as safety might require.

A refinement of this system, developed jointly by RCA and General Motors, was demonstrated at the RCA laboratories in Princeton, N. J., in June 1960. First, an automobile circled the test track continuously. But the driver was not steering the vehicle; it was steering itself.

When the driver made a deliberate attempt to steer the vehicle out of the lane, the car automatically stopped. Next, with a pair of vehicles circling the track, the following vehicle automatically maintained a safe interval regardless of the varying velocity of the leading vehicle. It stopped when the lead vehicle stopped and started again when the lead vehicle started, all automatically.

Other devices and concepts have been demonstrated or suggested. The importance of the development work done thus far lies not in its efficacy or perfection, but rather in the fact that it demonstrates the technical feasibility of an automatic control system.

Increased efficiency

Automatic control of traffic would also increase the efficiency of the system. Safe headways between vehicles could be shortened because of the reduction in reaction time. A competent control system will permit full use of all lanes on a multiple-lane highway during heavy directional flows. Median strips and their barriers could be eliminated and the overall roadway narrowed. The maximum capacity of twolane roads could be developed by providing for passing maneuvers whenever safe, rather than depending on the driver's judgment and on sight conditions.

There will be many other benefits: travel times will be reduced and rides will be smoother and more pleasant. The mental, nervous, and physical condition of the driver should be greatly improved. He will not need to steer a car continuously, without respite. He will be relieved of practically all the tension-producing incidents; they occur as often as every few seconds in dense traffic and can add up to several hundred in a day's driving. There is little question that an effective control

system will cost a lot of money, but many proponents of automatic control claim that the increased efficiency will save enough on new construction to pay for the system.

It is probable that controls could most easily be installed on freeways, where they apparently are least needed. But the driver would leave the high-speed road relaxed and perhaps less accident prone on the nearby roads.

A program for highway safety

Highway safety today requires immediate emergency measures as well as a long-range stable solution through automatic control. Expanded activities in education and enforcement might bring some immediate relief, but engineering is somewhat at a loss for emergency remedies. Some help might come from increased installation of contemporary traffic control devices. There is little evidence that widening pavements and shoulders, reducing curvature and grades, and similar measures will have much beneficial effect.

A reduction in the amount of travel would almost surely reduce accidents. With very minor exceptions, accidents and traffic volume go hand in hand. On the majority of highways, under ordinary conditions, the relationship is approximately linear-cut the traffic by half and the accidents are reduced by half. The validity of this approach is also shown by nation-wide experience during World War II. For several years before the war the annual toll had been averaging about 38,000, peaking at 39,969 in 1941. When gasoline rationing reduced the travel mileage, the toll fell to 28,309 in 1942, 23,823 in 1943, and 24,282 in 1944. Deaths increased with increased travel from 1945 on.

Stay off the road

Until a safe highway transportation system is provided, unnecessary travel on the nation's roads and streets should be reduced as much as possible and by any feasible means. For private passenger-car travel this might be by education and persuasion to eliminate unwise travel, by the transfer of passenger travel to other media such as mass transit subways, commuting trains or buses, and to air and rail for longer distances. Truck travel could be reduced by diverting much of the medium and long-haul express and freight to railroads and airlines. It is ironic that present public policy is increasing the highway slaughter by encouraging more and more highway travel while at the same time it is throwing away a railroad transportation system which

is at least ten times safer than highway transportation.

The traffic reduction measures suggested here may seem drastic, but drastic action is required to realize safety. It is to be emphasized that these would be emergency measures, for the most part, until a relatively safe highway system could be developed. This need not take long. In 1961 the Special Committee on Electronic Research

in the Highway Field of the Highway Research Board, under the chairmanship of the late O. K. Normann, developed a tentative program whereby full-scale field testing of automatic control systems could begin within about a year after initiation of a feasibility study. A program of sufficient scope could produce a workable system in another two or three years. Installation and use could then begin, and if pursued vigorously, could bring under control in two years a large part of the Interstate and primary road systems, which would then be carrying nearly half of the total traffic. This would be only five years from the beginning of the development program.

The critical need is immediate creation of an all-out, intensive research and development project. This can be started immediately, because funds in terms of tens of millions of dollars could be made available from federal and state funds appropriated for research. Additional millions should be available from public health funds. Certainly sufficient talented manpower and sufficient material resources are available.

The work will be costly and it will be difficult, but it can be done. If air, rail, and elevator traffic can be controlled as they are today, if satellites can be controlled from centers thousands of miles distant, then highway traffic can be controlled.

Motor-vehicle transportation has been a boon to mankind. The engineer can make it safe. He can make it more useful, more efficient, more pleasant. The beginning is a great research project which he must promote through public agencies and officials, civic groups and individual citizens, and through his own professional organizations-the American Society of Civil Engineers and other founder societies, the Society of Automotive Engineers, the Highway Research Board, the American Association of State Highway Officials. He must be prepared to support the sound fruits of that research although indicated changes may seem strange to the layman. In the meantime, if he wants to double his chances of getting off the nation's highways alive, he can cut his driving in

half.