Exten.Sio·Ns of Remarks
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4038 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS February 25, 1971 EXTEN.SIO·NS OF REMARKS HIGHWAY SAFETY RECEIVES AT disabling injuries and cause damage on the VOICE OF DEMOCRACY ESSAY CON order of $2.5 billion. TEST WINNER IN NORTH DAKOTA TENTION IN PERCEPTIVE ARTICLE Most states have laws on their books which give judges the authority to impose jail sen tences or to revoke the licenses of those who HON. MARK ANDREWS HON. JENNINGS RANDOLPH have shown themselves to be a menace to OF NORTH DAKOTA themselves and to others. But the automobile OF WEST VIRGINIA has become such an integral part of the cen IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES taurian society in which we live that many Thursday, February 25, 1971 Thursday, February 25, 1971 judges are unwilling to invoke these penal ties except in the most extreme cases: Lack Mr. ANDREWS of North Dakota. Mr. Mr. RANDOLPH. Mr. President, for of a driver's license may cost a man his job, Speaker, I am proud to announce that many years we have been attempting to or make it impossible for a widowed woman Miss Patricia Colberg of Fargo, N. Dak.• cope with the problem of mayhem on to shop for her children. has won the Voice of Democracy essay our roads and streets. We have known And yet it is clear that, if the multiple contest in North Dakota. offender has rights, so too, does the potential during most of this time that the ma multiple victim. At the very least, he (or she) A student at North High School in jority of vehicle crashes are caused by who has been involved in serious moving Fargo, she plans to enter North Dakota problem drivers, such as alcoholics, nar violations ought to have his car daubed with State University this fall to study either cotics addicts, and the habitual reck scarlet letters identifying him as what he is: bacteriology or medicine. less driver. However, all levels of gov A potential k111er. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. ernment, including our courts, have been One way of doing this would be manda Wayne J. Colberg. reluctant to identify and deal firmly with tory replacement of a car's regular license In her essay, Miss Colberg describes tags with conspicuously colored ones after two things her generation must do to this individual. the vehicle had been involved in two moving The news media is beginning to give violations within a single calendar year. maintain freedom in America. They are: the problem driver the attention he Now there are some nuts, and I fear their Respect the opinions of otl:ers, and should have as a menace. tribe increases, who would continue to drive work through the system. An article by Smith Hempstone, pub recklessly even if their cars were painted in Her essay deserves public attention, lished in the Evening Star of February 24, polka ·dots. But it is a reasonable assump and I insert it in the RECORD as follows: deals effectively with the problem driver tion that the knowledge his car bore red VOICE OF DEMOCRACY and focuses the spotlight on him. tags marked "Dangerous Driver" would slow down most multiple offenders, or at least (By Patricia J. Colberg) I ask unanimous consent that the give others a fighting chance by identifying "Ask not what your country can do for article be printed in the Extensions of him so he could be treated with extreme you, but what you can do for your coun Remarks. caution. try." These familiar words of the late Presi There being no objection, the article Highway terrorists with three violations dent John Kennedy typify what I would was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, could be given tags of another distinctive consider the responsibility necessary for the as follows: color bearing appropriate lettering. Such preservation of that one resource our coun drivers would be allowed to use their cars try can boast is so plentiful-FREEDOM. ZAP THE HIGHWAY CONG WITH SCARLET only for getting to work and for essential But before we can determine the role Young LETTERS shopping, but not for social purposes. America should play in the maintenance of (By Smith Hempstone) Since most cars are used by more than one freedom, we must ask ourselves two ques Too much blood has been shed. The cas driver, such a scheme admittedly would work tions. The first pertaining to freedom of the ualty lists grow longer daily. It's time for a a hardship on-and be unfair tcr--the safe past: What has made Freedom our Heritage? cease-fire on this country's highways. drivers in a family. But the stigma of hav And the second referring to freedom at pres Our streets, roads and interstate freeways ing to drive a car marked as a potential k111er ent: How is freedom living in today's world? in itself could generate family pressures The answers to these questions concerning have become free-fire zones in which more freedom's past and present hold the key to Americanil are killed each year than have which might markedly reduce the burgeon ing number of traffic fatalities. Normal unlocking the door to freedom's future. died in six years of warfare in Vietnam. In What has made Freedom our Heritage? one recent year, the butcher's bill was 52,500 plates could, of course, be returned to a ve hicle after a stated period, perhaps 18 Our nation was established on the concept deaths, 2 million disabling injuries and an of freedom for every man. Three documents economic loss of close to $10 b111ion. months, free of moving violations. If a hard-core motoring malefactor were virtually assure that end: The Declaration Fundamentally, the problem is that there of Independence-proclaiming a free, in are too many cars, many of them of unsafe unimpressed by the restrictions placed on his license and his car, if he continued to be dependent nation; the United States Cor construction, being driven too fast by too stitution-actually establishing our country many drivers who are reckless, inexperienced involved in moving violations, then for his sake and for that of others his license should and the Bill of Rights--insuring Man's un or stupid, sometimes all three. Those to be permanently revoked. An automobile can deniable liberties. But there is an even whom the bottle is no stranger add an extra be a weapon as lethal as a submachine gun, richer background of freedom's actual be element of peril for those who must run and no man has an unalienable right to coming our heritage if we look only to the the automotive gantlet. either. men who fought for freedom. For without Because the problem is a complex one, The drunken driver, responsible for 28,000 these brave people who dedicated their very there can be no single solution to it. But a deaths annually, has been a serious problem lives to gaining liberty for all men, freedom step toward sanity might be made by identi for years. With the spread of the drug cul may never have become the cornerstone of fying the highway Viet Cong, the multiple ture, we face the prospect of some very bad America's foundation and those three docu offenders who terrorize our roads and make trips indeed, for users and non-users alike. ments insuring our freedoms may never a commuter's mere survival a feat worthy of have been written. Remember Thomas With a swe111ng population of 204 million Paine? Paine struggled defiantly to free the a campaign ribbon. people and 80 million automobiles on the Recidivist traffic offenders, who are nearly colonies from Britain's tyrannical rule by road, the risk of allowing accident-probe publishing a newspaper critical of Mother as great a menace to society as the felons drivers to carry on their fender-crunching who stalk our sidewalks, number in the many England. Nathan Hale-a young school ways simply has become unacceptable. teacher hanged by the British as a traitor tens of thousands. They come from every Thousands of people can be marshaled to age and ethnic group, every stratum of so spurred-on the freedom-fighters with his march on Washington to protest American famous last words: "I only regret that I ciety, every occupation: Teen-agers, house casualties in Vietnam. Yet it is one of the wives, businessmen, laborers. have but one life to lose for my country.'' many ironies of our crazy time that nobody And it was the oratorical stamina of Patrick And they are at the core of the problem, is very much interested in protesting against Henry who laid his life on the line with make no mistake about that. The Automobile those reckless drivers who kill and maim his emphatic conviction: "Give me liberty Club of Micliigan, which recently investi thousands of their countrymen every year. or give me death!" These men-three of a gated the circumstances surrounding 363 Each of us, if he is honest with himseif, list of hundreds-who substantially con fatal accidents, found that about 25 percent knows that he has driven recklessly on at secrated their lives to the establishment of of the drivers involved had been in an aver least one occasion. But it oan't go on this a Free nation. These men made freedom our age of three previous accidents. Translated way. It's time to de-escalate the free-fire Heritage because these men struggled to into national terms, that would mean that zones which our highways have become.