This new inside door handle is convenient to operate yet safer than any previous design. It is integrated with the armrest and requires only a slight pull inward to unlatch the door. Its design makes it particularly secure against accidental door openings caused by the bump of a knee or elbow, or the tendency of a passenger to grasp a door handle in an emergency situation. The handle is a one-piece, chromed die-casting which is attached to a remote control door release assembly by a retaining screw. The assembly consists of a bracket and a spring-loaded lever that rotates around a pin on two husky Oilite bearings. When the handle is pulled out, it swings the inside of the lever forward, activating the rod that controls the door latch.

This door handle is used on 1966 Chrysler; Dodge Coronet, Polara, and Monaco models; and Plymouth Belvedere and Fury models.

Since word description alone might be inadequate to someone not continually exposed to these details, I have brought a model for your appraisal.

The new handle will lie in the plane of the door panel ahead of the armrest and will be almost flush with the door panel surface. This new design has two advantages. It will reduce the injury hazard if a passenger is thrown against it, and it will materially reduce the likelihood

of the door being opened unintentionally in an emergency from a passenger grabbing or striking the door handle. We cannot offer it on all our 1966 cars, because the body panel changes could not be accomplished in time. However, over 70 percent of our 1966 cars will have them, and all of the 1967 models will have these safeguard door handles.

I offer this example as only one of several which illustrate our thinking about safety items. We make potential safety items available as standard equipment as soon as they have been demonstrated to be of substantial value in saving lives and preventing injury and have become economically acceptable to most car purchasers.

OBSTACLES TO ACCEPTANCE OF SAFETY FEATURES

Some safety features have obstacles to their acceptance in addition to cost, in that they may require active cooperation and maintenance by the user. When one or more of these factors serves initially as a barrier to immediate public acceptance of a new safety feature, we make the item available first as optional equipment. Some safety features provide their full measure of benefit without special cooperation either in use or maintenance-and moreover can be made available at essentially no increase in cost. These we put on our cars as standard equipment as soon as development work can be completed. Our new door latch release is an excellent example.

PROOF OF VALUE OF SAFETY DEVICES FROM EXPERIENCE

The testing we do in our laboratories and on our proving grounds can show only the potential value of proposed safety devices. Proof of their real value must come from the experience of using them on a large number of vehicles operating under all possible conditions. Even then highly skilled salesmanship must be employed to arouse the public's interest. A recent Gallup poll on seat belts, dated July 6, 1965, shows that even now, after years of publicizing the benefits of seat belts, and after years of trying to sell them as an important factor in saving lives, only 42 percent of all drivers have cars equipped with belts. Of that number, only 36 percent use them at all times. In other words, even with the knowledge that universal use of seat belts could save 5,000 lives a year, only 1 of 7 drivers uses them at all times.

POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTIONS TO SAFETY BY GOVERNMENT

In 1959 testimony before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Health and Safety, the automobile industry endorsed the principle that the Federal Government should purchase safety equipment for its cars. We stated that the Government should set an example for the public by adopting available safety equipment for Government-owned motor vehicles. We still believe this action will encourage the general public to purchase and use safety features on their personal cars. We urge that this admirable example-setting program be extended to all branches of government-Federal, State, and local.

The Government could perform another beneficial service by purchasing experimental safety equipment for Government vehicles.

Since the GSA purchases about 40,000 vehicles anually, its fleet of cars is large enough to provide useful statistical confirmation of the value of new experimental safety features within a few years of their inception.

FEDERALLY FINANCED CENTER FOR STUDY OF ACCIDENT CAUSATION

The Government could make a major contribution to vehicle safety in another area. This involves the proposal to establish a federally financed center for the intensive study of the many contributory causes of traffic accidents. To obtain a reliable indication of the effectiveness of proposed accident and injury-reducing features, a comprehensive and reliable system of accident reporting must be inaugurated. The proposed center could be of great help in this total effort.

We recommend that the center engage in three major programs. 1. A comprehensive accident investigation and reporting program should be instituted, with sufficient scope to provide adequate samples of all causes of all kinds of accidents. The reports of injury-producing accidents from this program, including medical, physical, and environmental data, would help us better direct the efforts of our laboratory and proving grounds tests.

2. A substantial program should be carried out to study the sociological and psychological factors involved in operating automobiles in a crowded society. This program should encompass the fields of driver licensing, traffic regulation enforcement, and other related subjects. It should make use of the statistics gathered in the accident investigation program, and in addition should generate studies to interpret the statistics. One such program-admittedly limited in scope, but of great interest nevertheless has been in operation in Washtenaw County, Mich., for 3 years. In cooperation with law enforcement agencies, a team of doctors from the University of Michigan Medical School is investigating every fatal automobile accident occurring in that county. Of some 72 accidents these men have investigated, they have determined that approximately 50 percent of the fatally injured drivers were under the influence of alcohol to such an extent that by any criteria they should not have been operating an automobile. In addition, a substantial number of these drivers had an established record of belligerency while intoxicated. While this is not a definitive study by any means, we believe it points up the need for intensive investigation into the psychological factors leading to automobile accidents.

3. A program of supplementary education in traffic safety should be established for the more than 94 million licensed drivers now on our roads. The job of educating people merely to accept and use proven safety features is one of great magnitude. Many people, as we have pointed out, still do not use the seat belts now provided for them. It is difficult to believe, but we received complaints that the buckles are uncomfortable to sit on.

But the total job is even more difficult. Chrysler Corp. and its dealers, in an effort to educate the Nation's future car drivers in safe driving techniques, furnish driver education automobiles free of charge to any qualified school in the country. We now have over 5,000 automobiles assigned to approximately 3,600 schools in 49 States.

And we believe they are making a tremendous contribution to the cause of highway safety.

We have issued numerous pamphlets on automobile safety, and we are continually treating the subject in all media of communication. However, the efforts of a federally financed safety center could be of great help in this difficult area of education for safety.

This concludes my formal testimony. I would like to submit for the record as an additional addendum a statement of our position on several controversial ideas concerning highway safety. Mr. Boyd has a short additional statement for the committee's consideration, after which we will be happy to answer any question you might have.

POSITION ON CONTROVERSIAL IDEAS ON AUTOMOBILE SAFETY

I would like to state very briefly our position on several controversial ideas having to do with automobile safety.

First. We believe the most efficient way to achieve vehicle safety is through free and open research, unencumbered by legislation that specifies design.

Only 15 years ago it was believed that an accident victim was safest if he was thrown clear of the vehicle. Accident reports often were written to imply that an occupant's life was saved because he had been thrown clear. If a law had been passed at that time, based on generally accepted beliefs, it could easily have required that every car be built to make passenger ejection as easy as possible in the event of a crash. The result of such a law would have been tragic. The findings of the Cornell crash injury research project, supported by the automobile companies, are now common knowledge. We all know that we were wrong 15 years ago. A passenger is in fact considerably safer if he stays inside the car. And I am happy to say that the greatest progress that has been made in this field of highway safety-the greatest saving of life-has come with the development of new door locks and the installation of effective seat belts designed to keep the passenger inside the automobile. We believe the industry should be allowed to continue its work toward finding better ways to protect the passengerto explore every avenue leading to safety, unencumbered by restrictive legislation on design.

Second. The automobile industry now offers to the public a great many more safety items than the motorist is ready to pay for, accept, and use. In many cases we have been able to provide items which do not require the public's cooperation and which add little to the cost of the car such features as safety rim wheels, interlocking door latches, and recessed steering wheels. But our greatest problem has been to persuade the average motorist to adopt and use the safety items that do need acceptance. Seat belts were available for years, but only a very small percentage of all motorists ever installed them. Only in the past few years, after a good deal of publicity by safety organizations, has the seat belt been accepted as a legitimate part of an automobile. We are still a long way from persuading all passengers to wear them. All the evidence indicates that the majority of American motorists, in spite of all the publicity, still do not buckle their seat belts every time they ride in an automobile.

Some people have suggested designing the ignition system so the car will not start unless the belt is buckled. We know from experience

that in such an event these same people will very likely buckle the belt and then sit on it. We already receive complaints that our belt buckles are uncomfortable to sit on.

Cushioned sun visors were available for our cars as long ago as 1957. Demand was so light that they were all but discontinued. The same story can be told of item after item. Availability of safety items is not the problem. Public acceptance is.

Third. The great majority of safety items on today's automobiles were developed voluntarily by the industry long before any laws were introduced requiring them. Moreover, the development and testing of legitimate safety devices can require a period of several years. And the fact that legislation is often introduced about the same time as the safety item is perfected is, we believe, only one more indication of the public's readiness to accept the item.

Fourth. There is not and never will be a completely safe automobile. If a driver wishes to use an automotive vehicle to commit suicide-and the fact that this happens is not unsupported by evidence no vehicle we can build could stop him. Neither can we build a vehicle to prevent all deaths caused by crashes which are purely accidental.

Safety is a relative term. A passenger can receive relatively good protection from death or serious injury now through many safety items already offered on our cars. But the idea of a completely safe automobile, while certainly admirable as a goal, is not in the realm of the attainable.

And, fifth. The automobile itself is only one of several things that need to be studied to cut down the rate of accidental deaths.

There is no single solution to the problem of highway safety, and no one proposal shows more promise than any other. What is needed is a balanced approach, constantly doing what needs to be done to improve the car, the driver, the road, and the enforcement of traffic. laws. The car has been receiving great attention for years, by some of the best engineers and safety experts this Nation has produced. These engineers have done an outstanding job of studying the causes of crash injuries and of building automobiles designed to minimize injury. We at Chrysler have supported the Cornell crash injury research project, as one example, for 10 years. And we continue to support it, because we have learned a good deal from it.

But at the same time, not nearly enough has been done to study means of designing safer highways. Highway engineers are now discovering better ways to improve the construction of even our superhighways to make automobile travel safer and more pleasant. A great deal of work remains to be done with two-lane roads, especially in rural areas.

Studies of the driver himself have only recently been undertaken, and on a very limited basis. The surface has hardly been scratched. A limited study recently conducted in Michigan has given some weight to the argument that possibly as many as half of all traffic deaths involve confirmed alcoholics or persons with psychological problems. We draw no sweeping conclusions from such a study, but we do believe it points up the need to reexamine some of our favorite theories. The possibilities for improvement of driver attitudes and reactions appear almost limitless. That work should be continued with aggressiveness.