I am not quite positive off the top of my head the percentages but they ran something like this. About 25 to 27 percent of our members, one of the top complaints was the size of the trucks on the highways. This is one of the things that bothered them.

Now, the individual clubs

The CHAIRMAN. How many members have you, Mr. Kachlein? Mr. KACHLEIN. We have in the United States just under 10 million; overall, 10.7 million when you include the Canadian members. The CHAIRMAN. Those are dues-paying members?

Mr. KACHLEIN. Those are dues-paying members, sir; and they cover all the States of the Union with the exception of Alaska, and they involve some 236 locally autonomous nonprofit clubs. So, you are talking about the grassroots people when you discuss matters dealing with highways.

The statements that we make in behalf of those 236 clubs and their members are as a result of a series of committee meetings wherein people from all segments and all parts of the United States are represented.

The CHAIRMAN. In AASHO's testimony, we had an indication of how their criterion was derived and how their policy was formulated. How have you arrived at your policy on the matter of weights and sizes? I think it might be necessary to have that for the record. Mr. KACHLEIN. I turn this over to Mr. Brady.

Mr. BRADY. The policy is arrived at, first of all, by discussion of these matters before a highway committee. The highway committee is composed of representatives from the various autonomous clubs throughout the country and a policy position statement is then prepared. This subsequently goes to a policy and resolutions committee. The policy and resolutions committee is composed of about 75 members representative of the different areas of the country. If the policy statement is approved by the resolutions committee, it is then submitted to our delegates at our annual meetings. Once adopted by the delegates it is then incorporated in our policy and resolutions book and becomes a policy or a resolution of the association.

The CHAIRMAN. I will ask you, Mr. Brady, to leave that material for the subcommittee's use. It might be helpful to us in our deliberations. (The document to be supplied was subsequently filed with the committee.)

The CHAIRMAN. We thank you, Mr. Kachlein.

I imagine Senator Baker might want to ask a question or make a comment. Very happy to have it at this time.

Senator BAKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Kachlein, I noticed an advertisement in the newspaper this morning for American Airlines purchase of Douglas DC-10 airplanes on the theory that bigger airplanes would haul more people with fewer trips and therefore relieve traffic congestion.

Mr. KACHLEIN. I noticed that too, sir.

Senator BAKER. I also notice, in the statistics that the staff has provided me that in the case of trucks and automobiles there appears to be pretty direct relationship between passenger car accidents and truck accidents on the basis of the number of vehicles as opposed to traffic.

90-908 0-68—17

In other words, there seems to be about the same percentage of truck accidents as there are automobile accidents in relation to the registration of trucks and automobiles. This leaves me to wonder if there is not some basis for conclusion that you have accidents on a direct relationship to the number of vehicles that are on the highway, whether trucks or cars.

Mr. KACHLEIN. I have never analyzed it on that basis, Senator. Senator BAKER. The figures I have here are from 1966, and I wonder if you are familiar with them. They come from the report of Bureau of Public Roads.

They show, for instance, that in 1966 there were 50,200 fatal accidents by passenger cars and 10,300 by trucks. In all accidents by automobiles, there were 20,800,000 and by trucks there were 2,650,000, which converts to a ratio of about 85 percent/11 percent, and that the total ratio of registrations with passenger cars 81 percent and trucks 16 percent.

So, it is not a perfect analysis, but it gives rise to the inquiry as to whether or not there is in fact a direct relationship between accidents on the one hand and the number of vehicles, as opposed to traffic on the other, whether they are passenger cars or whether they are trucks. Now, I ask this next question in all seriousness.

Might it not be said that increases in the size and the efficiencies of trucks and trailers might reduce the number of vehicles involved by half?

Mr. KACHLEIN. Senator, from the figures that we had received and that I quoted earlier, there was the indication that maybe your analysis is not quite correct.

If you take the truckers who are engaged in the greater quantity of operations, their death rate and their accident rate was higher than that of the normal vehicles per 100 million miles traveled. In other words, in the death rate it shows the 1966, if my memory serves me right, approximately 5.7 overall average, but in the class I and class II truckers operations the death rate was at a figure of 12.5 or 6 which would indicate to me that maybe the analysis which you gave was not based on facts that at least been put in evidence through the Interstate Commerce Commission reports.

Senator BAKER. I wonder if we are not taking two different tracks. Mr. KACHLEIN. Could be.

Senator BAKER. I think what you have given us is an analysis of the severity of accidents. I think what I have given you, which is also from the Bureau of Public Roads 1966 Report, is a total of all accidents, whether they related to severity or not severe accidents.

The question at hand, though, and I still would like to put it although I don't want to belabor the point, is whether or not there is not in fact the prospect and potential for decreasing accident rates by decreasing gross number of vehicles by in turn increasing the load carrying potential or capacity.

Mr. KACHLEIN. I ask Mr. Brady also to comment on this, sir.

Mr. BRADY. I Would like to comment on the question first asked by Senator Baker.

The study from the ICC, from which I would like to put an excerpted page into the record, if it is permitted

The CHAIRMAN. That will be agreeable.

(The document is as follows:)

Mr. BRADY (continuing). Shows that the death rate per 100 million reported vehicles miles for the carriers of property, the large carriers of property, was 12.42. This is in 1966, and you must remember that this record was accumulated over rural highways where you do not have the accident exposure of congestion of city streets.

This can be compared against the national average of 5.67 per 100 million motor vehicle miles of travel.

So, that is the source of our statement that the record was worse than twice as bad.

Senator BAKER. Understand, I am not disputing your figures; I am certain they are correct. I only offer the observation that you may be dealing in terms of test of the severity of accidents, i.e., death rates, as distinguished from the number of accidents in which vehicles are involved.

I don't think anybody would argue that an accident with a tractor trailer, no matter what its actual weight is, going to be more severe than an accident with a Chevrolet or Ford in ordinary circumstances. Mr. BRADY. That is what the figures show, that when you have an accident with a truck it is a very serious accident.

Senator BAKER. That still bears on the question that I am trying to put and that is the question of whether or not increasing the number of vehicles might not decrease the accident rate of all vehicles involved in traffic.

Mr. BRADY. There is no indication that the number of trucks in operation will be of decreasing nature. The subcommittee heard testimony yesterday regarding the explosive population situation and the increases in ton-miles hauled, and certainly the expectation is that truck traffic will be increasing rather than decreasing, regardless of what we do on sizes and weights.

Senator BAKER. I think that is clearly so and I think automobile traffic will, too, but still and all, according to these figures that I have and, by the way, Mr. Chairman, if I may enter these as part of the record, they are very short, tabulations from a publication called Accident Facts, 1967 Edition. Source: Based on reports from 21 States traffic authorities. Vehicle registrations based on data from U.S. Bureau of Public Roads and American Taxicab Association. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection.

(The table referred to by Senator Baker follows:)

1 Percentage figures are based on numbers of vehicles and do not reflect miles travelled or place of travel, both of which affect accident experience.

In addition to these occupant fatalities, there were 9,300 pedestrian, 750 bicyclist, and 110 other deaths.

* These vehicles are not included in total vehicle registrations; estimated number-5,000,000. Includes fire equipment, ambulances, special vehicles, other.

$ Data not available.

Source: Based on reports from 21 State traffic authorities. Vehicle registrations based on data from U.S. Bureau of Public Roads and American Taxicab Association.

Senator BAKER. The point I make is that the accident rate apparently on the basis of these figures is the function of the number of vehicles and not a function of traffic. So, the function would remain if there are "X" vehicles as passenger vehicles carrying conveyances and "Y" as commercial trucks, and 10 years from now there are five "X" and five "Y", the function would still be the same and the relationship would still be the same; that is, there would be a percentage of vehicles in each category involved in accidents if this relationship holds.

I do not mean to insist or even to suggest that increasing axle weights or lengths or widths will contribute to safety. I simply point out that on the basis of the statistics which I have there is a deducible case which I believe is entirely supportable that there is not a directrelationship between truck size and weight and cargo-carrying capacity on one hand and accident frequencies or even severity on the other.

I make this point only to make sure that we don't get confused in the matter of considering the violence or the intensity of accidents as distinguished from number and frequency of accidents.

That is all.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator SPONG (presiding). Thank you very much, Mr. Kachlein. Mr. KACHLEIN. Thank you very much.

(Subsequently the following letters were received :)

Hon. JENNINGS RANDOLPH,

AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION,

February 26, 1968.

Chairman, Roads Subcommittee, Public Works Committee, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.

DEAR SENATOR RANDOLPH: In response to your request to Mr. Kachlein when we appeared before the Roads Subcommittee in opposition to S. 2658, I am enclosing a copy of the national travel survey conducted by the American Automobile Association on travel habits of AAA members during calendar year 1966.1

1 Filed with the committee.