vehicles. The chemical test, I think, will make it easier for the courts to
determine the guilt or innocence of a person charged with drunken
driving, and will cause those who are inclined to drive after excessive
drinking to give serious consideration to their acts.

The Traffic Safety Commission, I am told, is concerned about the
increase in the number of pedestrian accidents in the State, particularly
in Baltimore. A new law was enacted at the recent session of the General
Assembly to allow municipalities to penalize jaywalkers. It is my hope
and belief that many pedestrians' lives will be saved by this legislation.

Public support is required to make any program effective. We public
officials can pass and administer laws, but in the final analysis it is
groups such as this that make them work.

In closing, may I again commend all of you for your public-spirited
interest in this problem of traffic safety. And may I encourage you
graduates to disseminate widely the knowledge you have gained here
to the end that Maryland may have the safest highways in the country.

ADDRESS, GOVERNOR'S SAFETY-HEALTH CONFERENCE

BALTIMORE

September 9, 1959

We have just come through another holiday weekend, with the dis-
tressing consequences that bitter experience has taught us to expect—
slaughter on the highways, drownings, deaths and injuries from an
assortment of accidents.

The figures, as I collected them, show that six persons died in auto-
mobile accidents on Maryland highways, with more than a dozen injured.
Drownings claimed the lives of three persons, and another was killed
when his car was hit by a train.

Our holiday weekends follow a painfully monotonous pattern. In-
variably they are preceded by a barrage of publicity in which the public
is warned of the hazards of travel and the perils of recreational pursuits
by newspaper and magazine articles, editorials, cartoons and pictures
and statements by public officials. The holidays roll around, and radio,
television and newspapers give us a running account of the death toll.
And then, when the weekend is over come the grim totals followed by
more articles, editorials and statements deploring the awful results.

552