Today, thanks to a growing public outcry and the efforts of concerned citizens and safety leaders, the problem of drunken and drugged drivers is gaining national attention. State legislatures are enacting tougher laws and courts are imposing stiffer penalties. The Presidential Commission I appointed last April is reinforcing these efforts and encouraging greater preventive and corrective programs. Congress recently passed legislation setting Federal standards and providing incentive funds to assist in the crusade against the human and economic waste which results from drunken driving. The holiday season, traditionally a high fatality period, affords us the opportunity to join even more emphatically in a concerted national commitment to reduce the threat of drunken and drugged drivers on our highways.
Collisions involving drunken drivers are the nation's single greatest killer of young people.
This holiday season we can give our children a great gift by doing everything we can to keep the drinking driver and the drug-user off our roads. Let us all observe safety and celebrate safely, and let us remember that the safety belt in our car can be our best defense against drunken and drugged drivers. I call upon each of you to observe this week with appropriate activities in your homes, offices, schools, and communities. I ask all Americans to join in a national campaign to eliminate drunken and drugged driving and to prevent tragedy from intruding on our joyful holiday season. In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this 13th day of Dec., in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and seventh.