ASTEC INDUSTRIES, INC. GLYPH<149> VISION 20/20 A system designed for current and future needs, both those of motorists and truckers, would allow us to keep  the existing and new systems in a much better state of repair with much smoother surfaces. As outlined in  the following paragraphs, the benefits arising from quality roads of sufficient capacity would make the system  self-funding. Tests at the National Center of Asphalt Technology (NCAT) have shown that on smoother roads vehicles  consume five percent less fuel. At $1.50 per gallon, this would increase the utility of a gallon of fuel by 7.5  cents. It is estimated that the reduction in tire wear would be around one-half cent per gallon, and reduction in  vehicle maintenance cost was calculated to be one cent per gallon of fuel used.  By adding these factors, smoother roads would increase the value of a gallon of fuel to the motorist by six  percent. However, if the estimated 60 million dollar cost savings generated by reduced traffic accidents were  calculated into the total, then smoother roads would let us enjoy an overall cost reduction of 46.5 cents per  gallon of fuel used.  By increasing the overall gas tax by ten cents per gallon, the entire system could be built over a twenty-year  period. This investment in the future of our country will pay for itself almost immediately, as the numbers  outlined above show. An improved interstate freeway system, where heavy trucks are separated from auto- mobile traffic, would improve the productivity of our country and give our economy the ability to grow. It would  improve the safety of our people while giving them the freedom of mobility, which is the backbone of our  American society. In just one hundred years of the automobile playing a major role in our American way of life, we have come  over dirt roads, paved two-lane highways, paved two-lane highways with reinforced shoulders and wider  lanes, four-lane roads, and finally to the interstate freeway. This interconnecting system of roads is the major  part of our infrastructure and a driver of economic growth. As unimaginable as it seems to live without the  personal freedom our system of roadways provides us, we often take it for granted. One only needs to recall the effects of insufficient infrastructure. In the former Soviet Union, crops rotted in  the fields or in warehouses because there was no distribution network to get them to the peopleGLYPH<146>s tables. In  the PeopleGLYPH<146>s Republic of China, where they are just now beginning to build modern roads, albeit in discon- nected sections, this lack of pathways controls the movement of the people.  In the United States we are fortunate enough that any of the 200,000,000 automobiles and 3,400,000 trucks  can, for the most part, move unimpeded throughout the nation.  Most of us spend little time contemplating the asphalt roadway that takes us to work and play each day. The  only time awareness of what we are riding on may become more than a blip on our mental radar screen is  when we are sitting in a traffic jam suffering from varying degrees of frustration, when our car thumps into a  pothole, or during inclement weather. Hot mix asphalt has been used for a hundred years to reinforce routes  of travel in the United States. It has been much the same recipe for most of that time: crushed rock and liquid  asphalt, heated up and mixed together.  In the last fifteen years the road building industry has come a long, long way, a fact of which the general  public seems largely unaware. The industry is interesting in that each of the fifty states is responsible for  overseeing the construction of roads in their jurisdiction. So we end up with a multitude of specifications and  standards of quality, not to mention the fact that local materials are used in making the hot mix asphalt. Rock  in Minnesota will be very different from that used in Texas.  A WELL-MAINTAINED AND SAFE ROAD SYSTEM ENSURES OUR FREEDOM THE NEW GENERATION OF PAVEMENTS. Asphalt Roads Are Not What They Used to Be Return on Investment Direct and Indirect Savings FUNDING OF THE FUTURE. 5