The procedures that he follows they lay down. They bring these people to Washington periodically for seminars and other training procedures to emphasize the significance of the medical examinations that they lay out. Then after this initial examination is made, sir, report and recommendations of the medical examiner are forwarded to headquarters office where they are reviewed by the medical staff of the FAA. The safety supervisor of the FAA is instructed to ride with this. applicant for an airman's license, to give specific attention to his ability to perform under operating circumstances. First of all, the Commission does not have a medical staff. We think, as the Vice Chairman has said, the cost to the Government would be tremendously disproportionate to the few cases that might be made available to seek such justification. Mr. WILLIAMS. Let me interrupt you at this point. It appears to me the medical staff would not be necessary because this deals with physical impairment. It does not deal with the general health of the individual. * It deals with physical impairments. When a person who has a disability of the amputation type applies for a pilot's license, he is given two checkups. He is given first a check ride which will determine his ability to fly the aircraft within the requirements that are needed for the granting of that particular type of license. He is also given what is called a medical check ride in which the inspector pays more attention to how he makes up for his deformities than he does to how he flies an aircraft. I recall in my medical check ride the inspector would drop papers on the floor, he would put the airplane in an unusual altitude and see how quickly I reacted and how quickly I made my corrections. Is there any reason why the inspectors could not give individuals medical check rides on the type of equipment that they are seeking to drive? Mr. Cox. I don't concede that it can't be done but it would be a highly dangerous business. Mr. WILLIAMS. You do have a Bureau of Standards, a section of standards, drivers standards? Mr. Cox. We call it the Section of Motor Carrier Safety. This is the part of the Commission' staff that recommends to the Commission what its minimum qualifications and requirements are. Mr. WILLIAMS. The doctor examining an amputee who finds him otherwise in good condition would send a report to the Bureau of Safety stating that this man is in good health but that he has certain physical limitations, an amputation of the left leg 4 inches below the knee with a satisfactory working prosthesis. The Division of Safety in Washington would check that and authorize a medical check ride for him in the type of equipment that he is seeking to operate. Assuming that his performance is satisfactory on that equipment, is there any reason why he should not be given an opportunity to operate a motor vehicle? Mr. Cox. My answer is that I think it would be a highly complex and somewhat dangerous matter to test this man on a surface vehicle of this type and to anticipate the jackknifing, the types of emergency situations in which he would find himself under certain weather and highway conditions. Mr. WILLIAMS. Is it less dangerous to test a person who has full use of all his facilities? Mr. Cox. We have the question of who would judge the fitting of the prosthetic device, the psychological adjustment of the person to it. Mr. WILLIAMS. It is not a matter of fitting. It is a matter of how he uses them. You see, I am talking from experience. Mr. Cox. I am aware of this; yes. I do think you are proposing a dangerous, certainly a costly type of determination for which, if we are going to make a significant type of inspection, you would have to put this vehicle into the kind of-well, in terms of your experience, I will use the word "tailspin"-a jackknife operation, which I think would be very dangerous and certainly would be costly. We would have to find the personnel competent to administer it. Mr. WILLIAMS. Is that not equally dangerous with any other person? In other words, you are just arbitrarily saying that a person with a disability is less competent in all circumstances than any other person who has his full facilities? Mr. Cox. No, I am trying to say, sir, in answer to your question, that to make the determination as to whether he was competent or not would be a costly and complex matter. Mr. WILLIAMS. I do not believe I have any further questions at this point. Does that conclude your testimony? We Mr. GoFF. It does conclude our testimony, Mr. Chairman. appreciate your courtesy to us here. It is always a pleasure to appear before this subcommittee. I am happy that you and Mr. Hemphill stayed right to the end. We appreciate it. Mr. Cox suggests, Mr. Chairman, that if you would be interested at all in seeing one of these great big trucks that are used in longdistance hauling brought up just to examine it to see the size and complexity of it, that we can arrange to have it brought up here. Mr. WILLIAMS. I do not think that is the issue here. We are not attempting to force disabled drivers on these tremendous vehicles that they can't operate. We are not suggesting that these people be forced. Understand, once they get their license they still have to get hired. The people who own the trucklines are the ones who are taking the chance on the liability in case of accident. There is no requirement that anybody hire these people to drive these trucks. The only thing we are asking is that they be given an opportunity to compete. Mr. GoFF. Mr. Chairman, we believe as a practical matter if there is a man in the situation you refer to that he can get a job. As has been pointed out in my original testimony, most cities have an area of commercial zone that covers more than the actual city limits. The one around Chicago is a tremendous area. Now we exempt the drivers in these commercial zones from these safety regulations, that is as to their qualifications. If a man who is qualified-as you say, he can go to a fellow who does intracity trucking where they have smaller vehicles, he can get a job. I think there are a number of them actually so employed right now. We don't interfere with that. They are much smaller vehicles, they go at much less speeds. As I say, their loads are much lighter when they are just transporting them ordinarily inside a commercial zone and there is an opportunity for men in that situation to secure employment as drivers. Mr. WILLIAMS. I understand that. But I feel that you are arbitrarily denying an opportunity to this man to make full use of all of his faculties, his facilities, and his abilities when his abilities may be equal to those who already operate. What I am suggesting is that the individual himself, this be put on an individual basis, and the individual who does prove himself to be equally competent to the other individual shall not suffer arbitrarily, and I use this word reluctantly, "discrimination." It does not seem likely. I am sure you will have to agree with me in private that it is not right. Your objection to this thing is in the mechanics of doing it. Is that not right, basically? Mr. GoFF. Well, I would not quite say that. I think I ought to invte your attenton to the fact that the statutes say that we are responsible for safety. Now, however, I might have a human impulse, a humantarian desire to individually approve qualification by one of these men, and heavens knows, I know plenty of them who I admire very much. Mr. WILLIAMS. How about a fellow with the loss of a couple of fingers on his hand? Is he barred? Mr. GoFF. No; he would not be. Mr. WILLIAMS. Yet, with his three fingers he might not be as strong as a man with good working prosthesis. Mr. GoFF. That may be true but our responsibility is to maintain as far as we can safety on the highways. We have no responsibility such as the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, to take care of these other people, however, we might individually desire to do it. Our responsibility on the Commission is to do what we think is going to assure safety on the highways. I can only point out that if we did have a man who is so handicapped with great big trucks, we could only have to have one bad accident and you know who would be blamed for it. The answer would be, "What was wrong with those fellows, letting a man drive in that condition?"--they would not know all the answers, we are not dodging criticisms, we get it both ways, but it is simply that we know there is one way highways are going to be safe and that is that at least the fellow who has a terrific physical handicap won't be driving one of these vehicles. It is too dangerous. It is the same proposition as I see it as putting a man with a prosthetic device in one of these big transport planes. I just don't think there is enough demand for it that anybody would do it. Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, I quite agree with you except I do not think he should be barred from operating one of these big transport planes if he proves himself physically capable of doing so. Perhaps you agree with me in principle on that? Mr. GOFF. Mr. Chairman, I certainly agree with you on principle. I do. Mr. WILLIAMS. As a matter of fact, we have handicapped people operating big transport planes, perhaps not for the airlines but they are operating. Mr. HEMPHILL. Do you have any provision for a fellow who has awful big feet? I wonder if some of this trouble is caused by big feet, a heavy foot? I am not being facetious. Mr. GOFF. No, you are not, because I know what you mean, it is heavy on the foot throttle. Mr. HEMPHILL. A man with big feet would naturally have more pressure. Mr. GoFF. Mr. Cox has one more statement. We don't want to take too much of your time. Mr. Cox. It might be of interest to you, sir, to know that of those accidents that now occur under presently existing regulations, 56 percent of the truckdrivers who are killed are killed in accidents involving loss of control, jackknifing, overturning, vehicle leaving the road. Forty-four percent of those who are injured are drivers of commercial vehicles of the carriers reporting to us. Twenty-two percent of all the people injured in accidents reporting to us by common and contract carriers are drivers of the carrier-owned trucks. For this reason we have felt that we are serving the interest of the handicapped person, himself as well as that of the public in general. Mr. WILLIAMS. These statistics are very interesting but I fail to see relevance. When you have two individuals equally competent, one who may have suffered some type of physical impairment and the other who has not, why one should be arbitrarily ruled against and the other for it is hard for me to understand. As I say, we have pretty well covered the subject in this testimony. Let me ask you one more question. Mr. Goff, this committee would like very much to have the agency or the Commission come up with some constructive suggestions for handling this situation. I think all of us realize that a central examination by a doctor of medicine or osteopathy probably does not meet the safety standards. I certainly would welcome the cooperation of the Commission in assisting in the drafting of legislation should it become necessary or should the committee decide to approve such legislation to assist us in putting it into proper shape. Mr. GOFF. Mr. Chairman, I am sure I speak for the Commission in saying that if it is the desire of this committee and you, Mr. Chairman, we will try to work some kind of proposal. Mr. WILLIAMS. I do not think there is anyone on the committee and I doubt if there is anyone in Congress who would not be sympathetic to the purposes of this legislation. Of course, I am not authorized to speak for the Congress but I certainly have not spoken to an individual in Congress who has not expressed sympathy with this situation, and who has not said that something should be done to remove this absolute prohibition against these people if they prove themselves to be equally competent. Thus far all we have from the Commission is just arbitrary opposition to any move that would be in the direction of licensing persons who may have suffered certain types of disability. I would certainly hope that the Commission would cooperate with us, particularly in trying to set up certain criteria which should be followed in the licensing of these people should the Congress decide to take such action. I would like to have some recommendations or suggestions from the Commission to this effect. Although we oppose doing anything about it, nevertheless if the Congress. insists upon it we would suggest so and so. Do you follow what I mean? Mr. GoFF. I do. If Congress directed or authorized us to certificate drivers, that is permit drivers, to operate these long-distance vehicles in interstate commerce, what is our recommendation as to means to facilitate the desire of Congress if that desire is manifested by the Congress. Mr. WILLIAMS. That is right. Mr. GOFF. We will go ahead on that basis. I think that Mr. Cox and his staff will prepare some recommendations for that purpose. Now I do think you should realize that this study which has been referred to at Harvard has taken a long while, and it is going on at a lot of Government expense. Just as Mr. Cox has stated, we feel that that is going on, they are going to make findings on this and we hesitated because why should we be spending money for the same purpose on which it is being spent at Harvard? Mr. WILLIAMS. If they want to subsidize that study, let us move it on down to the University of Mississippi. We need the money. Mr. GOFF. We will make some recommendations and get them up in a reasonable time. Mr. WILLIAMS. Thank you very much, Mr. Goff. The committee, of course, will give you a reasonable length of time to submit suggested recommendations. We are not in a position to want to force a thing on the ICC which it cannot handle. I do feel and I am sure other members of the committee will agree, that this is not an impossible situation, it can be handled and it can be handled fairly. We would like to have the suggestions of the Commission in that respect. Thank both of you gentlemen very much. Mr. GOFF. Thank you. Mr. WILLIAMS. We have two other witnesses listed on this legislation appearing together, I believe. Mr. Neely and Mr. Rennolds. Mr. Neely, how long is your statement? STATEMENT OF J. R. NEELY, VICE PRESIDENT, EASTERN GREYHOUND LINES, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MOTOR BUS OWNERS Mr. NEELY. The two statements should not take more than 10 or 15 minutes, sir. Mr. WILLIAMS. Fine. We will do our best. The House is in session right now. We will continue until we have to leave. Mr. NEELY. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Neely, are you testifying on behalf of yourself and Mr. Rennolds? Mr. NEELY. No; we have two statements to present. Mr. WILLIAMS. I see. Mr. NEELY. My name is J. R. Neely and I am vice president for safety and personnel training for Eastern Greyhound Lines with |