AUTOMOBILE JUNKYARDS 421 



developed originally by you and by others, which have had such 

 impact upon the scrap processing industry. 



Mr. PROLER. At the present time, we are processing through four 

 plants with our associates, approximately 15 percent of all the cars 

 produced in 1955. This is about the vintage of the cars that hit the 

 scrap yards at the present day, approximately 11 percent of cars 

 being manufactured today. 



Mr. MARLEY. There are others in the same business. 

 Mr. PROLER. Experimenting and doing the same thing. 



FRANK SMITH. The salvaged cars we buy cost from $250 to $700 

 apiece. It saves Texans on their insurance premiums. We feel 

 lie we, too, are a part of this Great Society. You figure out a way 

 we can get the price of this scrap up and I will guarantee you that 

 these junkyards, as you call them, up and down the road which 

 don't include places like the ones that the 500 members in our asso- 

 ciation run will be cleaned up. If you will get the scrap price to 

 exceed the labor costs, they will be cleaned up. 



TERRY FISKIN. We have a suggestion at this point that might save 

 money for the Federal Government, instead of costing it money, 

 which has been the approach in most of these panels. California has 

 more registered vehicles than any other State and probably more 

 dismantlers per square mile than any place else. We are moving the 

 cars. Our average time is 90 days, not a year, for storage of our cars. 



We have proposed legislation in the State of California to speed 

 up the flow of documents as far as the time element is concerned. 

 The department has come to us and asked us to help and we have 

 given it some of the things we have tried out which have worked 

 out and might be a good model to use throughout the United States 

 and to speed up the whole process. Also we have made advances in 

 individual screening. We have ways of doing it very cheaply and 

 also expensive ways. 



CONRAD WIRTH. I own one of the seventy-five million cars now on 

 the road. And I am also interested in the landscape, because it is a 

 part of our country. I am perfectly willing as a car owner to pay a 

 little bit more to see my car is given the proper burial and does not dis- 

 turb everybody else. I make the suggestion that each title issued to a 

 car have a certificate on it, and that certificate be worth $100, and 

 when you turn in your car, you get your $ 1 00 back. 



