Statement by the President in Response to a Report of the Committee for Traffic Safety.

I AM grateful to receive this report from the Committee for Traffic Safety summarizing the tragic traffic death record of last year and describing its plans for a continued public support Action Program.

It is shocking to realize that 41,000 of our citizens were killed in traffic accidents last year. An additional 1 1/2 million persons suffered disabling injuries and another 3 million persons were less seriously hurt. The cost of these accidents--without any attempt to assign value to the human suffering involved-has been estimated at about $7 billion. This is a senseless record and a distressing waste of human resources.

I am equally disturbed that the prospects in the immediate future for major improvements in this record are not very bright.

It is apparent that there is no single answer to the national traffic safety problem. Instead, increased safety and a resulting decrease in the death and injury toll will result from an intensified and coordinated traffic safety program.

The Committee for Traffic Safety, which operates under the auspices of my office, has continued its public support Action Program. Within the past year, we have activated an Office of Highway Safety in the Bureau of Public Roads to work with the States and communities in a wide ranging safety program. We also have activated an Interdepartmental Highway Safety Board to coordinate the traffic safety programs of the Departments of Defense, Commerce, Labor, Health, Education, and Welfare, Post Office, and the Interstate Commerce Commission and the General Services Administration.

I am requesting these groups responsible for traffic safety programs to intensify and coordinate their efforts to improve the safety program and to produce a substantially improved traffic safety record as quickly as possible.

We cannot tolerate the human and economic waste which is occurring as a result of these traffic accidents.