Mr. WHITTON. Mr. Chairman, may I ask Mr. Robert Baker to sit with me, sir? Senator RIBICOFF. Certainly. Mr. Whitton, the thought occurs to me, you have a very long statement and your statement will be considered as if it had been read. Mr. WHITTON. Yes, sir. Senator RIBICOFF. Instead of reading the statement, if you would, you might want to make some comments generally of your observations and your experience with the Federal road system and then we might ask you some questions, but if you prefer to read the statement you can. We will consider your statement as read and it will so go into the record. Mr. WHITTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Senator Simpson. I am happy to have the opportunity of appearing before you and I will first say how much personally I appreciate the interest that you, Mr. Chairman, and your committee are taking in this very critical problem that we have. I know, of course, of your record in Connecticut and that is still being spoken of among highway people as a fine highway safety job that was done here with the help of Mr. Williams on my left. I also wanted to have Mr. Robert Baker here, who is head of our Bureau of Public Roads Research and Development Office. HIGHWAY SAFETY AND HIGHWAY SERVICE I would like to say a few words, if I may, and say that the highway program from as long as I can remember, and that is quite a spell, has been directed toward safer highways and better service. I don't think that you can separate highway safety and highway service. I think they go together. So we in the highway business, and I might say I spent some time with the State highway department before coming here, have Senator RIBICOFF. Which highway department? Mr. WHITTON. Missouri State Highway Department. Mr. WHITTON. Forty years, and we have through all that period, through my own personal knowledge, been interested in highway safety. During that period we have developed many features of the highway which have contributed to safety that you know about. You know we went from the 9-foot traffic lane to a 12-foot traffic lane, and you know we established center line marking and also reflectorizing so it could be seen at night, and you know we established edge marking, and you know we have established safe speed zones and safe speeds for curbs and we have increased sight distances from, say, 500 feet in the early time. Now, we are trying to get a thousandfoot sight distance. So, we have done all those things through the years that have improved highway safety. In fact, we brought the accident rate down from 15.3 deaths per hundred million vehicle miles in the early thirties, to 5.2 deaths in the early sixties. But we haven't quit worrying about it and we haven't quit working on it and we are continuing with research now to seek better ways and safer ways for traffic movement over the road. Incidentally, you, Mr. Chairman, said a few moments ago that the driver made the first mistake. Well we have assumed ourselves that perhaps the next mistake is the road. The fact is that something on the road has created the second mistake and many times the fatal one. That is the way we are looking at this program, on the instigation of President Johnson. I know he is looking at it just as seriously as you are, and as we are. On his instigation a year ago we started urging the State highway departments to spend a part of their money on the elimination of accident-prone locations, narrow bridges, narrow shoulders, narrow pavements, short-sight distance, narrow culverts, and since last March, just about a year now, we have encouraged 33 States to do some of this type of work, widening the bridges or widening the shoulders or paving the shoulders and we have Senator RIBICOFF. For the purpose of the record will you give us the name of the States that have cooperated with you? Mr. WHITTON. Yes, sir; and we are going to get the rest of themSenator RIBICOFF. Good. Mr. WHITTON (continuing). Before we are through. I have some personal recollections back in my mind that justify what I am saying. I remember a family once with 14 people in an old model car. I will not name it. The first mistake was they ran off on the shoulder, and the second mistake was that the shoulder was muddy and wasn't paved and that caused the accident, in my judgment. Some 8 or 10, I have forgotten the exact number, were killed in that 1 accident-a 1-car accident in which 14 people were involved. Senator SIMPSON. Wouldn't that be one of the chief causes-there were 14 people in the car at that time? Mr. WHITTON. That was the first mistake, Governor. They had too many people in the car and then the second mistake was he ran off the road, which might have been caused by too many people in the car, I don't know. What certainly contributed to that was the fact that the shoulder was muddy and wasn't paved. So, we have assumed in the Bureau of Public Roads and in most. of the highway departments, all of them, that the contributing factor to this accident was the highway, and that is the one that we talk about in our report. That is the one we are responsible for and we are giving all that we know how toward doing it. I have a couple of charts here. This chart, Mr. Chairman, shows the growth, the development of these projects on elimination of accident-prone locations starting last April up until this March. The total cost is $40 million we have spent and $21 million Federal funds, and 33 participating States and some 180 individual projects. We are keeping the pressure on to get that developed. Let me tell you, Mr. Chairman, why there is some resistance in the States. The State's great desire it was my desire when I was back in Missouri-is to build as many miles of good pavement as possible and good roads, and by pavement I mean either type. I am not saying one or the other, either black top or concrete. I don't want to get caught in that problem, but I know the desire of the chief engineer and many engineers to build as many miles of pavement as possible. But when you go to spending some of your money to widening a bridge floor or straightening a curve or widening the shoulders you don't build any miles of pavement but you just save lives. That is important and that is what we are trying to sell our people, I mean our people in the highway departments. We are going to continue to do that. We are continuing research. We are in research now and we have some projects going that we think will add to help the driver. The driver needs help. I have said this before. Most drivers are doing pretty good, but we can help them some more. One of the helps they need is some way, if we can find a way, to put some gadgets on a car that will indicate when there is a car ahead of them when they get too close to a car ahead of them. We are working on that. We are going to be working with the Weather Bureau, we have been talking to them, about some way to indicate 5 miles ahead that there is a fog. We think we can find that out and the Weather Bureau thinks they can, too, but we are thinking about it. Those are some of the things we are looking at for the future. EXHIBIT 36 Electronic guidance for highway safety JOHN J. OʻMARA, F. ASCE, Associate Professor, College of Engineering, State University of Iowa, Iowa City 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 'Civil Engineering, Oct. 1964. 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 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 in volved in a collision, and most fre quently on relatively level, tangen sections of road under good roadway and climatic conditions. A spacing sy tem is required also to prevent a ve hicle from colliding with another ve hicle, a pedestrian, an animal or other object. Some research has been done a automatic traffic control, and system of various types have been evolved One of the more interesting, and our that has perhaps been more highly d veloped 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 cabin 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 alter nating current of moderate frequency. A pair of magnetic pickups, mounted on the vehicle, are utilized either to indicate to the driver his lateral pos tion or to directly operate a power steering mechanism to keep the ve hicle 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 rec tangular loops of wire, about the length of a vehicle, spaced about 20 ft apart. The detectors are energized |