EXHIBIT 21 STATEMENT PREPARED BY DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF LABOR MR. CHAIRMAN: I am Daniel P. Moynihan, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Policy Planning and Research. As you know, I was to have appeared before you in the company of Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz. Several days ago he cancelled all his engagements here in Washington, and departed for California on urgent government business. As I know this is a disappointment to you, let me also assure you that this is just as great a one for him. If as your hearings continue, an occasion should arise on which you might wish to ask him to appear a second time, I know that he would greatly value the opportunity, such being the importance he attaches to the inquiry on which you are embarked. For my part I would like to speak about the responsibilities of the Department of Labor in this area, and to add some thoughts which are probably best described as my own, based on an interest in this subject which now goes back a decade. I was one of those whose interest in traffic safety was quickened by your own extraordinary efforts to draw attention to the gravity of the problem when you were Governor of Connecticut. I was then on the staff of Governor Averell Harriman of New York. On taking office he found, as you were to find, that problems of traffic safety came to his desk with an urgency that would surprise anyone who had not been through the experience. In the course of those four years I believe we developed a number of important insights into their nature. When your distinguished colleague, Congressman Jonathan B. Bingham, who had taken the lead in this matter, left Albany for the 1958 Political Campaign, I succeeded him as Acting Secretary to the Governor, and in that capacity as chairman of the New York State Traffic Safety Policy Coordinating Committee. Thereafter I maintained my interest in the field, published occasional articles, and involved myself with a group of epidemiologists, engineers, lawyers and political scientists in an effort to learn whether our respective disciplines when combined could not, in Paul Appleby's phrase, somehow make a mesh of things. Such progress as we may have made, I will touch upon this morning. The responsibilities of the Department of Labor for safety in the general field of motor vehicle and traffic safety derive from the following actions of the President and of occupational safety as a means of fostering, promoting, and developing the welfare of wage earners in the United States: to improve their working conditions and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment. The statutory authority establishing the employees, eliminate work hazards and health risks ..." 3) E.0. 10986 which makes the Department a member of the Federal Interdepartmental 4) E.0. 10858 which provides for representation 1 of the Department on the President's Committee for Traffic Safety. Under the authority of E.0. 10990, establishing the Federal Safety Council, the Department is now entering into a program to reduce accidental injury rates in the Federal Establishment at least 30% by 1970. This will involve attention to occupational injuries in traffic, as well as to other types of injuries. A part of this program as it relates to traffic is technical assistance to the GSA in the implementation of P.L. 88-515 on safety devices for passenger cars purchased for the Federal Establishment. The Department has no budgetary allowances and no personnel specifically allocated to motor vehicle and traffic safety. However, it is a fact that approximately 27% of all occupational fatalities to Government employees arise from motor vehicle accidents. We have information from the Bureau of Employee's Compensation that there were 4293 injuries to federal civilian employees reported during 1963 in which motor vehicles were involved. These included 86 fatalities, of which 71 were compensable. The direct payments through BEC in these cases that is medical cost, compensation - cost, and leave with pay cost - was $6,334,000. Property damage costs in these cases would have probably amounted to at least an equal sum if we had the information to determine them. This is an increase of 9% in injuries and of 31% in direct cost to the BEC since 1959. Because of the nature of our statistics, on which I shall have more to say presently, it is not possible to make even a reasonable estimate of the total number of injuries and deaths of federal civilian employees which result from motor vehicle accidents. There is somewhat more complete information concerning the Department of Defense. During 1963 the Department of Defense recorded a total of 27,431 automobile accidents, of which 16,039 involved government-owned vehicles and 11,392 were concerned with privately-owned vehicles. The accidents involving government-owned vehicles resulted in 111 deaths and a direct cost to the government of $16,538,000. Those involving privately-owned vehicles killed 1,430 people and cost the government $67,103,000. The total cost to the government was thus 1,541 lives and $83,641,000. The dollar cost of these accidents to the society was obviously much higher since damage to non-governmental property is not included in the Defense Department figures, nor is there any reference to the cost of the maintenance of the surviving members of the families of the victims. The cost of property damage and civilian injury resulting from the privately-owned vehicle accidents was probably equal to the direct cost to the government; indirect costs would bring the total to at least $300,000,000. The quite vigorous safety efforts of the Defense Department have reduced the number of motor vehicle |