The action program calls for a tightening of law enforcement, with
prompt and severe justice being meted out to all persons who threaten
their own lives and the lives of others in the mishandling of motor
vehicles. It advocates plugging any gaps that may exist in proper
motor vehicle administration and police traffic supervision.

With all this, to be effective it is essential that any program, state
or local, have full support of its citizenry. Here is where we, in positions
of official responsibility for highway safety, call upon the Safety First
Club of Maryland, and the many other organizations like it in Mary-
land, for help, in the heavy task we have to perform. It is extremely
important, let me repeat, that the State or the local government have
organized an effective citizen support for their traffic safety program.
And there is no better way—perhaps no other way—for them to receive
this support save through organizations such as this. You, more than
anyone else, can influence the individual. And let me say that it is
the individual himself who bears the ultimate responsibility for
the safety, or the lack thereof, of motor vehicular travel.

Yes, we need better highways. We need stepped up law enforcement.
We need improved driver education. We need seat belts and we need
mechanical improvements for automobiles. But somehow or other we
must find a way to reach the careless driver, to impress upon him the
error of his ways and if necessary to remove him from a position
in which he can menace all those about him. This undoubtedly is
what the legislator from Virginia had in mind when he spoke of
jackasses, nincompoops, drunks and fools. We don't have to be drunks,
of course, but at one time or another most of us are foolish and may
act like jackasses and nincompoops. The important thing is that we
not act—and not be allowed to act—like fools and jackasses and nin-
compoops while we are behind the wheel of an automobile.

Your State government recognizes that traffic safety is one of its

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