Senate OK's Haddon as traffic safety czar
WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, 1966 - The Senate has confirmed the appointment of Dr. William Haddon Jr. as traffic safety administrator.
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He will be responsible for the motor-vehicle safety standards, the research with experimental cars, the state and local highway safety programs and the accident prevention program.
PERSPECTIVE 2000
The U.S. auto industry did not go quietly into the Age of Regulation. Ford and other executives fought it with all their might. They opposed every rule, every safety standard. They insisted that every government proposal was impossible to meet.
Then they met every government demand, right on schedule.
Is it any wonder the industry lost credibility in Washington? It was known as 'the boy who cried `wolf.' '
But government regulation was here to stay. Eventually the auto industry acknowledged it, although the industry has never really accepted it.
Dr. William Haddon Jr., a physician, was the nation's first auto safety czar. His title, upon appointment in 1966, was traffic safety administrator in the Commerce Department. The following year he became director of the National Highway Safety Bureau in the newly established Department of Transportation.
He left in 1969, so he never worked for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which succeeded the safety bureau in 1971.
Before becoming safety czar, Haddon held a traffic safety planning post in the Commerce Department and served with the New York State Department of Health.
His job was to get safety regulation off the ground, and he did.
