"Every year automobile accidents kill nearly 40,000 people and send another million and a half to the hospital," stated Dana Jean Banks, Miss Teenage America 1963 and Youth Safety spokesman for Lincoln-Mercury.

Miss Banks spoke before representatives from various high schools in the Chicagoland area in a car safety conference held at McCormick place on February 23.

Darla is a 16 year old junior at Bullard high school located in Fresno, California. During her reign, she travels on weekends from city to city speaking about car safety in conferences all over the country, returning home on Sunday night so she is able to attend school on Monday. Among her interests are reading, hair styling, trampoline, flying, and water and snow skiing.

Dana Explains Problem

"The main problem," she reported, "seems to be in overcoming the 'it‑can't‑happen‑to‑me' attitude of so many thousands of drivers. Referring to the accident figures that I mentioned before, at least 5,000 lives would be saved each year and the injury rate would be slashed by one third if every American car were equipped with seat belts and if every passenger would wear them all of the time. According to safety experts, wearing belts in city traffic is more important than wearing them at any other time. Remember, more than half of the traffic accidents occur in urban areas at speeds less than forty miles per hour."