Citation

Wakeland HH. Proc. Am. Assoc. Automot. Med. Annu. Conf. 1966; 10: 147-150.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1966, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This year of 1966 has been a year of crisis and of momentous change in the organization of our nation's approach to traffic safety. After at least ten years of legislative struggle at both state and federal levels, a federal law has finally established broad regulatory authority of the safety of automobiles. For the first time in the National Highway Safety Agency, there is a center of apparent national responsibility for the coordinated progress of all traffic safety. Even more unusual, funds have been authorized by which that responsibility can be implemented. Significantly, the administration of the new agency has been placed in the hands of one of our few epidemiologists of traffic safety, Dr. William Haddon. This action ensures that the safety perspective of the agency will be both broad and founded on a logic of effectiveness.

Finally, the National Highway Safety Agency has been placed in a new Department of Transportation. Initially, this new department has no less a mission than the joining of our wide variety of transportation systems into a nationally integrated system. In the short period of two months, three major laws have been assigned to one group of administrators. They must be very busy, to say the least. At the same time, the General Services Administration standards are changing and improving rapidly.