 Mr. President, I am delighted to be able to present something very special to you. During the time that I served as your liaison with private sector organizations, I had the opportunity to get to know many leaders in various areas of our society, and they have provided a very special letter which I would like to read. We, the undersigned organizations, welcome the opportunity to join the national observance of Drunk and Drug Driver Awareness Week, December 11 through 17. We share your concern about drunk driving and pledge our continuing support not only during Awareness Week, but throughout the year. We will be alerting our employees and member organizations to the tragic consequences of this national problem and ask them to play an active role in promoting safe and responsible driving on our nation's highways, particularly during the holiday season. This is signed by many, many leaders of organizations, unions, businesses, ethnic groups, black leaders, many other groups, and I am just delighted to be able to present this to you today. Bill, if you'll help me. Thank you. Very good. And now I'm happy to present the chairman of your commission on drunk driving, John Volby. Thank you, Elizabeth, Mr. President, members of the Congress, members of our commission, the presidential commission, and friends of highway safety, I think I would have to say for everybody in the room. Mr. President, you gave us a task some 19 months ago, which I thought would take about 15% of my time, taken about 80, 85% of it, and I'm delighted to have had this great privilege of, again, working in an area that I started way back 30 years ago as commissioner of public works and more recently as sector of transportation, but I guess that was a dozen years or 13 years ahead of time because the public wasn't particularly interested at that time. The media wasn't particularly interested, and we had a hard job getting our message across. Thank God we've had some excellent support. We started off with a wonderful commission that you appointed of 32 people from various sectors of the private and public sector, and people who in most cases have not met each other, but we came together, rather unusual, with practically an anonymous report. It was unanimous in most respects, and I'm not going to try to detail some of the important factors in it. Time does not permit that, but I just want you to know that you've had a dedicated commission. We've had the support of Secretary Dole all the way up and down the line, of Administrator Steve, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which I formed back in 1970 when I was secretary, and it's done an outstanding job, and I just want to know that we're very pleased to be able to report to you, as we indicate here, that in 1982, 5,580 fewer Americans died on our highways than in 1981, 2,800 of whom would have been killed by drunk drivers. It was not the commission, my dear, Mr. President. There was a tremendous number of groups, the mothers against drunk drivers, the students against drunk driving, you name it. We've had them, truckers against drunk drivers, dealers against drunk drivers, physicians against drunk drivers, but it's been a marvelous, cooperative effort, and I'm very, very happy to present you with this final report. Well, John, Governor Volpe, I thank you very much for this report. I thank all of you, too. I'm delighted that so many were able to join us for this important event. Secretary Dole, distinguished members of the Congress, members of our commission, concerned parents and all who've worked so hard to prevent drunk and drugged driving, and of course, the surprise, Elizabeth, that you had here. I'm most grateful for that, and I'm going to take it back to the office, and I'm going to read all those names that are on that long sheet of paper, I assure you. Well, you've seen the beautiful Christmas decorations that are already up here in Washington. One of my favorites is the banner down near the National Christmas Tree. It says, peace on earth to men of good will. A little change in the usual expression there, but I think it's pretty suitable. We as Americans across the country, as we begin to gather with family and friends, today we're helping to make this holiday season what it ought to be, a time of peace and not of tragedy. Drunk or drug driving accounts for annual costs of over $20 billion in medical and rehabilitation costs, insurance payments, and lost production. There was a higher figure on the air last night, given on some of the news, much higher, several times higher than that for the total cost, if you added in a number of other elements, all of them which could be associated with alcohol and the abuse of it. Each year, drunk or drugged drivers cause half of all the highway fatalities, injure some 700,000 men and women and children. For those between the ages of 16 and 24, alcohol related crashes represent the leading cause of death. I know the members of the committee have found out all of these statistics. A drunk or drugged person behind the wheel of an automobile isn't a driver. He or she is a machine for destruction. The American people have paid the bills, seen the damage, and felt the heartache and I think they're saying enough. Last year, when we observed National Drunk and Drugged Driving Awareness Week, I said that if we worked hard enough, we'd make progress, and as John just told us, we have. 22 states and the District of Columbia have enacted tougher drunk driving laws, and in part because of those actions, last year the highway death toll in America did drop and the total drop was 10%. Reports so far this year show that the annual death toll is still dropping and again John gave us the figures on that and the credit for this great achievement goes to you here today and to thousands of others throughout our country have so diligently pursued community and legal action to end drunk driving. Your most important contribution has been a change in public attitude. Today drunk driving isn't a bad habit to be excused, it's a crime to be stopped. On behalf of the American people, I thank you. Let me also say a word of thanks to the members of our commission on drunk driving. You've done an outstanding job, both in heightening public awareness of the problem and in developing recommendations for dealing with it. And a special thanks to John Volpe and John, you've had a long career of distinguished public service. I could call you as I did, Governor, because that's a title you get for life. Mr. Secretary or Mr. Ambassador, it's another title you get for life. But today you're Mr. Chairman and in recognition of the leadership that you've given to this commission and of your faithful service to our country, I'm proud to present you with this Presidential Citizens Medal. Congratulations, my friend. In proclaiming our national drunk and drug driving awareness week, let's all do so with a renewed sense of commitment. Every accident that we prevent, we'll keep fellow Americans from suffering and give our nation a merrier Christmas. So I thank you all, and God bless you, and now I'll get over there and write with those pens that can only write one word at a time.