Contact: Jonathan Adkins
202-789-0942
jadkins@ghsa.org

Last week, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee released its bill to reauthorize surface transportation programs including the behavioral highway safety programs administered by GHSA members. GHSA commends the Committee for crafting such a strong bill that will give states the necessary resources to continue to forge ahead in the highway safety effort. The Committee’s bill, the Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (TEA LU) receives GHSA’s endorsement for numerous reasons, including:

• It substantially increases funding for federal driver behavioral grant programs. The Section 402 program – the flexible highway safety grant funding that every state receives -- is increased to $245 million in FY 2004, rising to $270 million by FY 2009. This is the first time funding for the Section 402 program would be increased above $200 million since FY 1980. The bill also provides substantial funding for impaired driving and improving occupant protection – the top behavioral highway safety priorities of the states and the federal government.
  
• It consolidates federal highway safety grant programs. Under current law, State Highway Safety Offices have to administer eight separate highway safety grant programs, each with different requirements, applications and deadlines. The TEA LU bill consolidates funding into four different grant programs that will be easier to administer.
  
• It builds upon existing, successful grant programs. Rather than creating new incentive grant programs that will require complex new approaches, the House bill builds upon the existing successful incentive grants. The Section 410 impaired driving incentive grant program is retained and strengthened. The Section 405 occupant protection incentive grant program is retained and a new performance option is added.
  
• It incorporates a performance-based approach to safety priorities. States can qualify for occupant protection incentive grants if they have a safety belt use rate of at least 85 percent. States can qualify for impaired driving incentive grants if their alcohol-related fatality rate is below the national average of 0.05 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles of travel. Both programs would reward the states for their high performance, regardless of the particular strategies the states took to achieve that high performance.
  
• It provides needed funding for data improvements. TEA LU proposes funding to help states improve the collection, management and reporting of highway safety data. States need data to help identify safety problems, set goals, select safety countermeasures, and monitor progress toward reaching those goals. In other words, highway safety data is essential to everything the State Highway Safety Office does. The additional funding will help states automate their data systems, link databases, purchase new hardware and software and make other needed improvements to help identify the biggest highway safety problems and target federal and state resources more effectively toward those problems.

States need additional resources to continue making progress in highway safety and clearly the Committee understands this need. GHSA pledges to work with the Committee to seek higher levels of funding for surface transportation programs, including behavioral highway safety programs. The Association will also work to ensure enactment of the highway safety programs of TEA LU.

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For more information, please contact GHSA at (202) 789-0942 or visit www.ghsa.org .

The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) is a nonprofit association representing the highway safety offices of states, territories, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Indian Nation. Its members are appointed by their Governors to administer federal and state highway safety funds and implement state highway safety plans.