The National Drivers Test came into our house on May 24th via the shell Oil Company, the National Safety Council, CBS News and a 17-inch screen. As a former TV writer I was acutely aware of the competition this program faced from the other networks and from local stations showing 1938 movies. Since I haven't seen the ratings (which I don't believe), I don't have any idea how great the impact was on the rest of the driving public, or even if some of them might have forsaken Ben Casey and Alfred Hitchcock for one night, I do know what impact it had on me and on my family, however. Should there be any questions from readers who watched something else that night, let me hasten to assure them that Hitchcock at his horrifying best couldn't match this show for sheer terror.

Before the context gets all mixed up, let me go on record as saying that I'm 100% for safe driving. Accident rates are growing alarmingly and something must be done in a positive way to put a stop to this reckless waster of life and property. Maybe I was the only one who was frightened by this show, but I was frightened. And from this experience I realized simple truth: Fear is not the answer!

On any holiday week-end, Monitor, NBC's successor to the six-day bike races, gives quarter-hourly reports to substantiate the pessimistic predictions of how many people will be killed. This is also true of all of the other stations on radio and TV and all of the newspapers, Violence and death makes good copy. Here is a sample "bulletin" for a holiday weed-end: "The death-toll I reaching the 300 mark--half-way to the 600 deaths predicted for this holiday week-end which is only in its 29th hour. Latest fatalities were Mr. & Mrs. Joe Smoke whose car plunged over an embankment in Ashton, Idaho and burst into flames," Then, in a tone faintly disguising delight, the announcer tells us how we are killing each other ahead of schedule.

What he doesn't say, nor does any of the other news media, is that we kill that many people on the average non-holiday week-end-sometimes even more. But if it isn't just July 4th, Christmas, or Thanksgiving no one makes predictions because they would soon lose their news appeal. This national lottery with lives is doing nothing to change disaster by predicting how many will be slaughtered. It must be terribly disappointing to the statistician when the killing falls short of his estimates. Somehow I think he'd feel a lot better if he knew something he had done in a constructive vein had actually saved lives-even one life.

Here is why the driving test gets my vote for the top horror show of the season. Out of 80 simple questions, my wife and I felt guilty because we each missed 2 for a score of 97.5%. My 13-year-old son only got 54 correct for a poor showing of 67.5%. But who expects a 13-year-old to do well on a driving test? Then came the shocker. In a tone of calm resignation, Walter Cronkite announced that the high average score went to drivers in the Chicago Area. Here, he told us, the average was 53 correct answers for a score of 66.2%, (one less than my 13-year-old non-driver). The nationaaverage, he went on to say, was 50 correct answers out of 80 for a score of 62.5%. Then with no apparent change of emotion, he pronounced half of the drivers who took the test as "unsafe" on the basis of their answers. You think that isn't scary? Just remember that my family-and YOURS-are out driving in that pack of idiots, and I use the word advisedly. The average driver taking that test scored a failing grade-a grade that would cost his own children dearly in punishments and loss of privileges-a grade that would deny them the opportunity of higher education. Even with an improvement of 33-1/3% more correct answers on the test, the average driver would just barely have a grade of "B" - the minimum grade for admission to most colleges. The average driver can meet only 2/3rds of the requirements for minimum standards which he himself imposes on his children. Hardly a reassuring thought when I'm behind the wheel.

I feel it's high time we stop playing around with numbers and giving credence to this practice through endless fear-oriented publicly. Of greater interest to me, than someone's guess as to how many will die violently on any given holiday, is what action is planned to either improve, or remove those drivers found by this test to be "unsafe"? Sure, if we leave them alone, they will eventually eliminate themselves. With this as the apparent solution we have chosen for the problem, I can't help wondering-
How many of us will they take along?