Remarks to Members of the Governors' Conference Subcommittee on Traffic Safety

Governors and ladies and gentlemen:

I am very grateful for your taking time out to come here to discuss the highway safety problem with us.

I have given thought to your replies to my letter of last March. There is no doubt in my mind that the real key to solving the problem will finally lie in your hands.

The Federal Government can and will be of such help as is possible. We think we can help with national safety standards. We think we can help with some money that may be available. We will try to contribute to research and provide such leadership as we have, but the ultimate responsibility must, should, and will finally rest back home.

We know the statistics on this subject are national statistics. People are getting killed every day on the roads in Texas, Kansas, California, Nebraska, and the other States. So you have a legal responsibility.

The Federal Government does not wish to issue the drivers' licenses. You, not the Federal Government, should inspect the vehicles or see that they are inspected. Your able and effective State troopers enforce the traffic laws. What you do not always have are the essential resources. That is what we in Washington are trying to help you obtain.

We believe that our people throughout the Nation in every State are concerned. We believe that they are aroused. We have been building up to this point for a long time. We realize that the time has come now to try to move forward--to take new and necessary steps.

Since the automobile was first invented, we have had 1,500,000 deaths from auto, mobile accidents. That is three times as many as our enemies have ever been able to kill in all of our wars.

Between 1961 and the end of last year, motor vehicles killed many more times as many of our servicemen as the Vietcong were able to kill in Vietnam.

Automobile accidents kill or injure more of our children and teenagers than any single disease that we have in this country. We must think of the untold grief and suffering brought to the homes throughout this land by these accidents. We must think of the lost lives and the lost opportunities.

Over the last Memorial Day weekend, 540 Americans died. That is the highest toll for any holiday in the history of the United States.

These statistics have become all too commonplace. But complacency must never stand in the way of progress, in the way of safety, or in the way of doing something about this very difficult problem. Indifference must no longer be excused.

Anything which touches the lives of so many citizens asks for Government action. The people ask for it. I believe with your help, with your leadership, we are going to get that action.

For the first time in our history we are going to face this traffic safety problem squarely. I believe we will conquer it.

The traffic safety legislation that I have sent the Congress will move us out of the age of ignorance. I believe it will establish a program of strict national standards for automobiles. I cannot stress too strongly the need for these standards.

The only alternative is unthinkable--50 standards for 50 different States. I believe that this would be chaotic.

The legislation that we have proposed will give us the resources to try to find out what causes the accidents. We are going to take a good, hard look--unemotionally and unsentimentally--at all the factors: the car, the road, the driver.

This legislation will let us apply that knowledge to the manufacture of safer automobiles and the construction of safer highways, and it will give us the necessary tools to develop and implement your own State safety programs.

The time for action has come. The need for standards is here. Every day that we postpone, more lives will be wasted. Every day lost puts us that much further behind.

So I would like to ask you to keep in touch with us through Governor Farris Bryant, as we move this program forward. I believe it will benefit every man, woman, and child in all of your States.