Message to the American Trial Lawyers Association Meeting in New York City.

MY MESSAGE to the American Trial Lawyers Association is simple and urgent--

We mug stop the slaughter on our highways.

I applaud your dedication to this vital task. I share your sense of sharp anxiety and deepening concern. You and I know that the gravest problem before this nation-next to war in Vietnam--is the death and destruction, the shocking and senseless carnage, that strikes daily on our highways and that takes a higher and more terrible toll each year.

It must stop. There is cause for sacrifice in Vietnam. There is no excuse for suicide at home.

There is no excuse for 49,000 Americans killed--3 1/2 million maimed and injured-billions lost in property damage and man hours--all in the one frightening and tragic year of 1965.

There can be no excuse for a nation that tolerates such anarchy on wheels. It is anarchy when each week nearly 1,000 of us die in auto accidents and when 70,000 more are crippled or hurt.

Since 1960, 1,675 Americans have been killed in Vietnam fighting Communist aggression. But the number of Americans killed on the highways in 1965 alone was more than 30 times greater. It is time we started doing our homework.

There is no excuse for a country--and no future for a people--that continues to ignore the mounting weight of evidence.

--It is a fact that 605,000 Americans have died in all wars from the Revolution to Vietnam--190 years--while 1 1/2 million Americans have died on our highways in only 25 years.

--It is a fact that if we continue at our present suicidal rate, half of all Americans will one day suffer death or serious injury on our highways.

--It is a prediction, an official government estimate, that our death toll may exceed 70,000 each year within the next decade.

I accept the facts. I refuse to accept the prediction. This Administration has moved and will move to stop the slaughter--to replace suicide with sanity, and anarchy with safety.

The existing Federal-Aid Highway Program gave new and high priority to the elimination of dangerous highway locations. Some 39 states have already spent $55 million on such projects, of which $26 million was provided by the Federal Government.

But more--much more--remains to be done.

I will shortly propose a comprehensive Highway Safety Act of 1966 to arrest the destruction of life and property on our highways.

I want to encourage your organization to carry the crusade for highway safety to every state, community and individual. Your constant and constructive efforts have already achieved much. Now, together with every American of sense and conscience, we can and must achieve more.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON