Milestones: Mar. 18, 1985

DIED. William Haddon Jr., 58, auto-safety crusader who from 1966 to 1969 led the several Government precursors of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; of kidney failure; in Washington, D.C. A physician, he applied quantitative research and analysis techniques to highway accidents and deaths, especially those related to alcohol. As national traffic-safety head, he concentrated on federal standards for safe auto design and tougher local ( and state drunk-driving laws. After 1969, as president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, he pushed for mandatory air bags in new cars, calling the auto industry’s resistance to them a scandal comparable to Watergate.