Highway Safety
Factors Contributing to Traffic Crashes and NHTSA's Efforts to Address Them Gao ID: GAO-03-730T May 22, 2003From 1975 through 2002, annual traffic fatalities decreased from 44,525 to 42,850, while the rate of fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled decreased from 3.35 to 1.51. However, decreases in fatalities have leveled off since the early 1990s. Since 1999, the number of alcohol-related fatalities has risen. In 1998, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century funded a series of highway safety programs. These programs, administered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), increased funding to the states for activities designed to encourage, among other things, the use of seat belts and to prevent drinking and driving. The states establish highway safety goals and initiate projects to help reach those goals. NHTSA provides advice, training, and technical assistance to states and can use management reviews and improvement plans as tools to help monitor and strengthen the states' performance. This testimony is based on two recent GAO reports that discuss the causes of motor vehicle crashes and related research, provide highway saftey trend data and information on federal highway safety funds and the states' uses of those funds, and review NHTSA's oversight of state highway safety programs.
Most motor vehicle crashes have multiple causes. Experts and studies have identified three categories of factors that contribute to crashes--human, roadway environment, and vehicle factors. Human factors involve the driver's actions (speeding and violating traffic laws) or condition (effects of alcohol or drugs, inattention, decision errors, and age). Roadway environment factors include the design of the roadway, roadside hazards, and roadway conditions. Vehicle factors include any failures in the vehicle or its design. Human factors are generally seen as contributing most often to crashes, followed by roadway environment and vehicle factors. To improve highway safety through programs that primarily address the human factors that contribute to traffic crashes and fatalities, about $2 billion was provided to states over the last 5 years for highway safety programs under the act. About $729 million was provided under Section 402, the core highway safety program, and about $936 million was provided through seven incentive programs, mainly for efforts to influence driver behavior. Another $361 million was transferred from state highway construction to state highway safety programs under provisions that penalized states for not complying with federal requirements for passing laws to reduce drinking and driving. GAO found that NHTSA's oversight of state highway programs could be improved. NHTSA regional offices have made inconsistent use of management reviews and improvement plans because NHTSA's guidance does not specify when to use them. As a result, some states do not have improvement plans, even though their alcohol-related fatality rates have increased or their seat-belt usage rates have declined. Without improvement plans NHTSA may not fully realize its goals in working with the states to improve highway safety. GAO recommended in an April 2003 report that NHTSA provide guidance to its regional offices on when it is appropriate to use these oversight tools. NHTSA is taking steps to improve this guidance.
GAO-03-730T, Highway Safety: Factors Contributing to Traffic Crashes and NHTSA's Efforts to Address Them
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Testimony:
Before the Subcommittee on Competition, Foreign Commerce, and
Infrastructure, Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
U.S. Senate:
United States General Accounting Office:
GAO:
For Release on Delivery Expected at 2:30 p.m. EDT,
Thursday, May 22, 2003:
Highway Safety:
Factors Contributing to Traffic Crashes and NHTSA's Efforts to Address
Them:
Statement of Peter Guerrero, Director
Physical Infrastructure Issues:
GAO-03-730T:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-03-730T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on
Competition, Foreign Commerce, and Infrastructure, Committee on
Commerce, Science, and Transportation, U.S. Senate
Why GAO Did This Study:
From 1975 through 2002, annual traffic fatalities decreased from
44,525 to 42,850, while the rate of fatalities per 100 million vehicle
miles traveled decreased from 3.35 to 1.51. However, decreases in
fatalities have leveled off since the early 1990s, as shown in the
figure. Since 1999, the number of alcohol-related fatalities has
risen.
In 1998, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century funded a
series of highway safety programs. These programs, administered by
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), increased
funding to the states for activities designed to encourage, among
other things, the use of seat belts and to prevent drinking and
driving. The states establish highway safety goals and initiate
projects to help reach those goals. NHTSA provides advice, training,
and technical assistance to states and can use management reviews and
improvement plans as tools to help monitor and strengthen the states‘
performance.
This testimony discusses (1) the factors that contribute to motor
vehicle crashes, (2) the funds provided to the states for highway
safety programs, and (3) NHTSA‘s oversight of state programs. The
testimony is primarily based on two GAO reports on these topics issued
in March and April 2003.
What GAO Found:
Most motor vehicle crashes have multiple causes. Experts and studies
have identified three categories of factors that contribute to crashes”
human, roadway environment, and vehicle factors. Human factors
involve the driver‘s actions (speeding and violating traffic laws) or
condition (effects of alcohol or drugs, inattention, decision errors,
and age). Roadway environment factors include the design of the
roadway, roadside hazards, and roadway conditions. Vehicle factors
include any failures in the vehicle or its design. Human factors are
generally seen as contributing most often to crashes, followed by
roadway environment and vehicle factors.
To improve highway safety through programs that primarily address the
human factors that contribute to traffic crashes and fatalities, about
$2 billion was provided to states over the last 5 years for highway
safety programs under the act. About $729 million was provided under
Section 402, the core highway safety program, and about $936 million
was provided through seven incentive programs, mainly for efforts to
influence driver behavior. Another $361 million was transferred from
state highway construction to state highway safety programs under
provisions that penalized states for not complying with federal
requirements for passing laws to reduce drinking and driving.
GAO found that NHTSA‘s oversight of state highway programs could be
improved. NHTSA regional offices have made inconsistent use of
management reviews and improvement plans because NHTSA‘s guidance does
not specify when to use them. As a result, some states do not have
improvement plans, even though their alcohol-related fatality rates
have increased or their seat-belt usage rates have declined. Without
improvement plans NHTSA may not fully realize its goals in working
with the states to improve highway safety. GAO recommended in an
April 2003 report that NHTSA provide guidance to its regional offices
on when it is appropriate to use these oversight tools. NHTSA is
taking steps to improve this guidance.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-730T.
To view the product, click on the link above.
For more information, contact Peter Guerrero at (202) 512-2834 or
guerrerop@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
We appreciate the opportunity to testify today on the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) efforts to reduce traffic
fatalities. Highway safety is a major concern for the country, given
that over 1.2 million people have died on our roadways over the last 25
years. Since 1982, about 40 percent of traffic deaths were from
alcohol-related crashes, and traffic crashes are the leading cause of
death for people ages 4 through 33. In addition to the tragic loss of
life, the economic cost of fatalities and injuries from crashes totaled
almost $231 billion in 2000 alone, according to NHTSA.
In 1998, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21)
funded a series of highway safety programs, administered by NHTSA, that
increased funding to the states to encourage, among other things, the
use of seat belts and child passenger seats and to prevent drinking and
driving. The states implement these programs by establishing highway
safety goals and initiating projects to help reach those goals. NHTSA
reviews state goals and provides oversight of state highway safety
programs.
My testimony today will discuss (1) the factors that contribute to
traffic crashes, (2) the funds provided to the states for highway
safety programs, and (3) NHTSA's guidance provided to states and
oversight of the states' programs. My statement is primarily based on
two GAO reports on these topics. The first report, issued in March
2003, dealt with the factors that contribute to traffic
crashes.[Footnote 1] To complete that effort, we analyzed three
Department of Transportation databases that contained data through
2001; interviewed experts from academia, insurance organizations, and
advocacy groups as well as department officials; and reviewed studies
on various aspects of motor vehicle crashes. In addition, NHTSA
recently released 2002 traffic fatality data, which we used to update
some of the information contained in the April 2003 report for this
testimony. The second report, which we are releasing today, provides
information on TEA-21 funds for state highway safety programs, how the
states have used those funds, and NHTSA's oversight of the state
programs.[Footnote 2] To conduct this effort, we visited six states and
the NHTSA regional offices responsible for them to determine how these
states were using the funds and to review NHTSA's oversight of the
states' programs. We also interviewed representatives of the Governors
Highway Safety Association and other highway safety organizations to
obtain their perspectives.
In summary:
* Many factors combine to produce circumstances that may lead to a
motor vehicle crash--there is rarely a single cause of such an event.
Experts and studies have identified three categories of factors that
contribute to crashes--human factors, roadway environment factors, and
vehicle factors. Human factors involve the actions taken by or the
condition of the driver of the automobile, including speeding, being
affected by alcohol or drugs, violating traffic laws, inattention,
decision errors, and age. Roadway environment factors include the
design of the roadway, roadside hazards, and roadway conditions.
Vehicle factors include any failures that may exist in the automobile
or design of the vehicle. Human factors are generally seen as the most
prevalent contributing factor of crashes, followed by roadway
environment and vehicle factors.
* About $2 billion has been provided to states over the last 5 years
for highway safety programs under TEA-21. About $729 million went to
the core highway safety program, Section 402, to carry out traffic
safety programs designed to influence drivers' behavior in such areas
as seat belt use, drinking and driving, and speeding. About $936
million went to seven incentive programs also designed to encourage
state efforts to improve seat-belt use, reduce drinking and driving,
and contribute to improvement of state highway safety data. In
addition, about $361 million was transferred from state highway
construction to state highway safety programs under provisions that
penalized states that had not complied with federal requirements for
passing repeat offender or open container laws to reduce drinking and
driving.
* To oversee state highway safety programs, NHTSA focuses on providing
advice, training, and technical assistance to the states, which are
responsible for setting and achieving highway safety goals. NHTSA can
also use management reviews and improvement plans as tools to help
ensure that the states are operating within guidelines and achieving
the desired results. However, we found that NHTSA's regional offices
have made inconsistent use of management reviews and improvement plans
because NHTSA's guidance to the regional offices does not specify when
to use them. As a result, some states do not have improvement plans,
even though their alcohol-related fatality rates have increased or
their seat-belt usage rates have declined. GAO recommended that NHTSA
provide guidance to its regional offices on when it is appropriate to
use these oversight tools. NHTSA is taking steps to improve this
guidance.
Background:
Since 1975, progress has been made in reducing the number of fatalities
on our nation's roads, but in recent years improvement has slowed and
some downward trends have been reversed. As figure 1 shows, from 1975
through 2002, annual fatalities decreased from 44,525 to 42,850, or by
about 4 percent. Annual fatalities reached a low of 39,250 in 1992 and
have been edging up since then. During the same period, the fatality
rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT), a common method of
measurement, dropped from 3.35 in 1975 to 1.51 in 2002, or by about 55
percent. Since 1992, the decline in the fatality rate has slowed.
Figure 1: Fatality Statistics, 19752002:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Alcohol-related crashes account for a large portion of traffic
fatalities.[Footnote 3] Between 1982, when NHTSA began tracking
alcohol-related fatalities, and 2002, about 430,000 people died in
alcohol-related crashes. In 1982, NHTSA reported 26,173 alcohol-related
deaths, representing 59.6 percent of all traffic fatalities. Alcohol-
related fatalities declined to 39.7 percent of all traffic fatalities
in 1999, but rose to 17,970--41.9 percent of fatalities--in 2002. (See
fig. 2.):
Figure 2: Number of Alcohol-Related Fatalities, 19822002:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
As figure 3 shows, alcohol-related fatality rates declined steadily
(except in 1986) from 1982 through 1997. However, there has been almost
no further decline in rates since 1997, when the rate was 0.65
fatalities per 100 million VMT. In 2002, the rate was 0.64 fatalities
per 100 million VMT.
Figure 3: Rate of Alcohol-Related Fatalities, 19822002:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
The overall decline in fatalities over the past quarter century is
attributable to many actions. For example, during this period, a number
of countermeasures were developed and installed in new vehicles. Seat
belts and air bags are credited with saving thousands of lives--seat-
belt use rates have grown from about 14 percent in 1983 to over 75
percent nationwide today. In addition, federal and state programs have
resulted in improvement in some areas. For example, increased
enforcement and greater public awareness of the dangers of drinking and
driving have, according to NHTSA officials, reduced the incidence of
casual drinkers becoming traffic fatalities. Having made improvements
in reducing causal drinking and driving, NHTSA and the states are now
faced with more challenging problems such as alcohol dependency, which
has hindered progress in reducing alcohol-related fatalities.
A Variety of Factors Contribute to Motor Vehicle Crashes:
Multiple factors typically combine to produce circumstances that lead
to a motor vehicle crash--there is rarely a single cause for such an
event. For example, it would be challenging to identify a single cause
of a crash that occurred on a narrow, curvy, icy road when an
inexperienced driver, who had been drinking, adjusted the radio or
talked on a cell phone.
In examining the causes of motor vehicle crashes, a number of experts
and studies identified three categories of factors that contribute to
crashes: human factors, roadway environment factors, and vehicle
factors. Human factors involve the actions taken by or the condition of
the driver of the automobile, including speeding, being affected by
alcohol or drugs, violating traffic laws, inattention, decision errors,
and age. Roadway environment factors include the design of the roadway,
roadside hazards, and roadway conditions. Vehicle factors include any
failures that may exist in the automobile or design of the vehicle.
Human factors are generally seen as the most prevalent contributing
factor of crashes, followed by roadway environment and vehicle factors.
Two examples of human factors that have a significant impact on traffic
crashes are speeding and alcohol. Speeding--driving either faster than
the posted speed limit or faster than conditions would safely dictate-
-contributes to traffic crashes. Speeding reduces a driver's ability to
steer safely around curves or objects in the roadway, extends the
distance necessary to stop a vehicle, and increases the distance a
vehicle travels when a driver reacts to a dangerous situation.
According to our analysis of NHTSA's databases, from 1997 through 2001,
speeding was identified as a contributing factor in about 30 percent of
all fatal crashes, and almost 64,000 lives were lost in speeding-
related crashes. From 1997 through 2001, 36 percent of male drivers and
24 percent of female drivers 16 to 20 years old who were involved in
fatal crashes were speeding at the time of the crash. The percentage of
speeding-related fatal crashes decreases as driver's age.[Footnote 4]
(See fig. 4.):
Figure 4: Speeding Drivers in Fatal Crashes, by Age and Gender,
19972001:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Alcohol consumption is a significant human factor that contributes to
many motor vehicle crashes. It is illegal in every state and the
District of Columbia to drive a motor vehicle while under the influence
of, impaired by, or with a specific level of alcohol or drugs in the
blood. Only Massachusetts lacks a law that defines the specific
concentration of blood alcohol at which it becomes illegal to
drive.[Footnote 5] As of January 2003, 17 states had set the standard
at 0.10 percent blood alcohol concentration (BAC) (the level at which a
person's blood contains 1/10th of 1 percent alcohol) and the remaining
states had set the standard at 0.08 percent BAC.[Footnote 6] NHTSA
recently reported that in 2002, 42 percent of all fatal crashes were
alcohol-related, and nearly 18,000 people died in alcohol-related
crashes. BACs of 0.08 or greater were reported for about 87 percent of
the alcohol-related fatalities in 2002. For each age category, more
male than female drivers were involved in fatal alcohol-related crashes
(see fig. 5).
Figure 5: Drivers in Alcohol-Related Fatal Crashes, by Age and Gender,
19972001:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
There is also a strong relationship between a driver's age and the
likelihood of being involved in a crash. While age, in itself, would
not be the cause of the crash, some of the characteristics displayed at
various ages can lead to a higher probability of being involved in
traffic crashes. Younger drivers' crash rates are disproportionately
higher mainly because of a risky driving style combined with driving
inexperience. Older drivers also pose greater risks; fatal crash rates
are higher for the elderly than for all but the youngest drivers.
The roadway environment--factors that are external to the driver and
the vehicle that increase the risk of a crash--is generally considered
the second most prevalent contributing factor of crashes. Roadway
environment factors that contribute to, or are associated with, crashes
include the design of the roadway, including features such as medians,
narrow lanes, a lack of shoulders, curves, access points, or
intersections; roadside hazards or features adjacent to the road that
vehicles can crash into such as, poles, trees, or embankments; and
roadway conditions (for example, rain, ice, snow, or fog). However, the
contribution of these factors to crashes is difficult to quantify.
NHTSA's crash databases contain limited data on roadway design features
at the crash location or immediately preceding the crash location. In
addition, the significance of adverse weather, including both slippery
roads and reductions in driver visibility, is not fully understood
because there are no measurements (for example, VMTs under adverse
weather conditions) available to compare crash rates under various
conditions.
Vehicle factors can also contribute to crashes through vehicle-related
failures and vehicle design characteristics (attributes that may
increase the likelihood of being involved in certain types of crashes).
While such recent events as the number of crashes involving tire
separations have highlighted the importance of vehicle factors, data
and studies generally show, and experts believe, that vehicle factors
contribute less often to crashes than do human or roadway environment
factors. For example, our analysis of NHTSA's data found that of the 32
million crashes from 1997 through 2001, there were about 778,000
crashes (about 2 percent) in which police determined that a specific
vehicle-related failure might have contributed to the crash. In
addition, vehicle design has been shown to affect handling in
particular types of maneuvers. For example, high-performance sports
cars have very different handling characteristics from those of sport
utility vehicles (SUVs). Recent changes in the composition of the
nation's vehicle fleet, in part attributable to the purchase of many
SUVs, have resulted in an overall shift toward vehicles with a higher
center of gravity (more top-heavy), which can roll over more easily
than some other vehicles. Rollover crashes are particularly serious
because they are more likely to result in fatalities. Our analysis of
NHTSA's 2001 data shows that passenger cars were the vehicle type least
likely to roll over in a crash; passenger cars rolled over in about 2
percent of all crashes and rolled over nearly 16 percent of the time in
fatal crashes. In comparison, our analysis shows that SUVs were over
three times more likely to roll over in a crash than were passenger
cars; that is, they rolled over in almost 6 percent of all crashes. In
addition, the proportion of SUVs that rolled over in fatal crashes was
over twice as high as the proportion of passenger cars. NHTSA recently
reported that in 2002, fatalities in rollover crashes involving SUVs
and pickup trucks accounted for 53 percent of the increase in traffic
deaths.
Funding for State Highway Safety Programs Has Grown:
About $2 billion was provided to the states for highway safety programs
for the first 5 years under TEA-21, from fiscal years 1998 through
2002. TEA-21 funded state programs three ways as follows:
* The core Section 402 State and Community Safety Grants Program
provided $729 million for behavioral highway safety programs.
* Seven incentive programs provided $936 million. States could use
funds from two of the incentive programs for behavioral highway safety
programs or highway construction. As a result, states allocated about
$789 million of the incentive funds to behavioral programs and $147
million to highway construction.
* Two penalty transfer programs provided $361 million in fiscal years
2001 and 2002. These programs transferred funds from highway
construction to highway safety programs to penalize states for not
complying with federal requirements for passing laws prohibiting open
alcoholic beverage containers in cars and establishing specific
penalties for people convicted of repeat drinking and driving
offenses.[Footnote 7] States could use both penalty transfers for
either alcohol-related behavioral safety programs or highway safety
construction projects. As a result, states allocated about $113 million
of the transfer funds to behavioral programs and $248 million (about 66
percent) to highway construction programs to eliminate road safety
hazards.
Funding for states' behavioral safety programs nearly doubled from
fiscal year 1998 through fiscal year 2001. (See fig. 6.):
Figure 6: NHTSA Highway Safety Funding to States, Fiscal Years
19982002:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Funding for the core Section 402 State and Community Grants Program has
been fairly level, in constant dollars, since 1991. Four major program
categories account for most of the states' use of the $729 million in
Section 402 State and Community Grants funds provided between 1998 and
2002: police traffic services, impaired driving, seat belts, and
community safety programs. Combined, these four categories account for
about 72 percent of the grant funds. Figure 7 shows how the states used
their Section 402 State and Community Grants funds during the first 5
years covered by TEA-21.
Figure 7: Uses of State and Community Grants Funds, Fiscal Years
19982002:
[See PDF for image]
Note: "Other" includes roadway safety, pedestrian safety, emergency
medical services, speed control, driver education, motorcycle safety,
school bus safety, and paid advertising to support Section 402
programs.
[End of figure]
The seven incentive programs under TEA-21 also provide funds to
encourage greater seat belt use, implement programs or requirements to
reduce drinking and driving, and contribute to the improvement of state
highway safety data. The funding available for these programs grew from
$83.5 million in 1998 to $257.2 million in 2002. While most of these
funds were used for funding additional behavioral safety programs, the
act provided that two programs, the 0.08 percent Blood Alcohol
Concentration Incentive (Section 163) and the Seat-belt Use Incentive
(Section 157) programs, could be used for any highway purpose--highway
construction, construction that remedied safety concerns, or behavioral
safety programs. Appendix I contains additional information on the
seven incentive programs.
Under the penalty transfer programs, the states that did not adopt
either the open container or the repeat offender requirements were
required to transfer a specified percentage of their federal highway
construction funds to their Section 402 State and Community Grants
Program.[Footnote 8] During fiscal years 2001 and 2002, the first 2
years that funds have been transferred, 34 states were subject to one
or both of the penalty provisions, and about $361 million was
transferred from these states' Federal Aid Highway Program funding.
(See fig. 8.) States can keep transferred funds in their Section 402
State and Community Grants program when they are to be used to support
behavioral programs designed to reduce drunk driving or the states can
allocate any portion of the transferred funds to highway safety
construction projects to eliminate road safety hazards. States varied
greatly in their decisions on how to use these funds, from allocating
100 percent of the funds to highway safety construction projects to
allocating 100 percent of the funds to highway safety behavioral
projects. Overall, the states allocated about 69 percent to highway
safety construction projects under the Hazard Elimination Program, and
31 percent went to highway safety behavioral projects. Twenty-eight of
the 34 states with transferred funds allocated a majority to highway
safety construction activities under the Hazard Elimination Program.
Figure 8: States Transferring Funds under Open Container and Repeat
Offender Provisions, October 1, 2002:
[See PDF for image]
Note: Alaska (both transfers), District of Columbia (no transfers),
Hawaii (no transfers), and Puerto Rico (both transfers) are not shown.
[End of figure]
NHTSA Has Not Made Consistent Use of Oversight Tools:
NHTSA's 10 regional offices focus on providing advice, training, and
technical assistance to the states, which are responsible for setting
and achieving their highway safety goals. In addition, among other
things, NHTSA uses management reviews and improvement plans as
oversight tools to help it ensure that states' programs are operating
within guidelines and are achieving desired results.
NHTSA regions can conduct management reviews to help improve and
enhance the financial and operational management of the state programs.
In conducting these reviews, a team of NHTSA regional staff visit the
state and examine such items as its organization and staffing, program
management, financial management, and selected programs like impaired
driving, occupant protection, public information and education, and
outreach. The team's report comments on the state activities and may
make recommendations for improvement. For example, in some management
reviews we examined, NHTSA regions found instances of inadequate
monitoring of subgrantees, a lack of coordination in state alcohol
program planning, costs incurred after a grant was over, and improper
cash advances by a state to subgrantees. However, NHTSA has no written
guidance on when to perform management reviews. We found that the
management reviews were not being conducted consistently. For example,
in the six NHTSA regions we visited, we found goals of conducting state
management reviews every 2 years, on no set schedule, or only when
requested by a state.
Improvement plans are another tool for providing states oversight and
guidance. According to program regulations, if a NHTSA regional office
finds that a state is not making progress toward meeting its highway
safety goals, NHTSA and the state are to develop an improvement plan to
address the shortcomings. For example, NHTSA, working with one state,
developed an improvement plan that identified specific actions that
NHTSA and the state would accomplish to improve alcohol-related highway
safety. The plan included such actions as implementing a judicial
education program, requiring all police officers working on impaired
driving enforcement to be adequately trained in field sobriety testing,
and developing a statewide system for tracking driving-while-
intoxicated violations.
NHTSA regional offices have made limited and inconsistent use of
improvement plans. Since 1998, only seven improvement plans have been
developed. In addition, we found that the highway safety performance of
a number of states that were not operating under improvement plans was
worse than the performance of other states that were operating under
such plans. For example, we compared the performance of the three
states that had developed improvement plans for alcohol-related
problems with the performance of all other states. We found that for
seven states, the rate of alcohol-related fatalities increased from
1997 through 2001 and their alcohol-related fatality rates exceeded the
national rate in 2001. Only one of these 7 states was on an improvement
plan. Furthermore, for one state that was not on an improvement plan,
the alcohol-related fatality rate grew by over 40 percent from 1997
through 2001 and for 2001 was about double the national average. The
limited and inconsistent use of improvement plans is due to a lack of
specificity in the criteria for requiring such plans.
To ensure more consistent use of management reviews and improvement
plans, we recommended in our report that NHTSA provide more specific
guidance to the regional offices on when it is appropriate to use these
oversight tools. In commenting on a draft of the report, NHTSA
officials said they agreed with the recommendations and had begun
taking action to develop criteria and guidance to field offices on the
use of management reviews and improvement plans.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased
to answer any questions that you or members of the Committee may have.
Contact and Acknowledgments:
For further information on this testimony, please contact Peter
Guerrero at (202) 512-2834 or guerrerop@gao.gov. Richard Calhoon,
Robert Ciszewski, Glenn C. Fischer, Bonnie Pignatiello Leer, and Glen
Trochelman made key contributions to this testimony.
[End of section]
Appendix I: Highway Safety Incentive Grant Programs:
Incentive category: Seat belt/ occupant protection incentives; Title of
incentive: Section 157 Safety Incentive Grants for the Use of Seat
Belts; Description of incentive: Creates incentive grants to states to
improve seat belt use rates. A state may use these funds for any
highway safety or construction program. The act authorized $500 million
over 5 years.
Title of incentive: Section 157 Safety Innovative Grants for Increasing
Seat-Belt Use Rates; Description of incentive: Provides that
unallocated Section 157 incentive funds be allocated to states to carry
out innovative projects to improve seat belt use.
Title of incentive: Section 405 Occupant Protection Incentive Grant;
Description of incentive: Creates an incentive grant program to
increase seat belt and child safety seat use. A state may use these
funds only to implement occupant protection programs. The act
authorized $68 million over 5 years.
Title of incentive: Section 2003(b) Child Passenger Protection
Education Grants; Description of incentive: Creates a program designed
to prevent deaths and injuries to children, educate the public on child
restraints, and train safety personnel on child restraint use. The act
authorized $15 million over 2 years for Section 2003(b). However, the
Congress appropriated funds to support the program for 2 additional
years.
Incentive category: Alcohol incentives; Title of incentive: Section 163
Safety Incentives to Prevent the Operation of Motor Vehicles by
Intoxicated Persons; Description of incentive: Provides grants to
states that have enacted and are enforcing laws stating that a person
with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 or higher while operating a
motor vehicle has committed a per se driving-while-intoxicated offense.
A state may use these funds for any highway safety or construction
program. The act provides $500 million over 6 years for the program.
Title of incentive: Section 410 Alcohol Impaired Driving
Countermeasures; Description of incentive: Revises an existing
incentive program and provides grants to states that adopt or
demonstrate specified programs, or to states that meet performance
criteria showing reductions in fatalities involving alcohol-impaired
drivers. The act provides $219.5 million over 6 years, which is to be
used for alcohol-impaired driving programs.
Incentive category: Data incentives; Title of incentive: Section 411
State Highway Safety Data Improvements; Description of incentive:
Provides incentive grants to states to improve the timeliness,
accuracy, completeness, uniformity, and accessibility of highway safety
data. The act provides $32 million over 4 years.
Source: GAO presentation of NHTSA data.
[End of table]
FOOTNOTES
[1] U.S. General Accounting Office, Highway Safety: Research Continues
on a Variety of Factors That Contribute to Motor Vehicle Crashes,
GAO-03-436 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 31, 2003).
[2] U.S. General Accounting Office, Highway Safety: Better Guidance
Could Improve Oversight of State Highway Safety Programs, GAO-03-474
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 21, 2003).
[3] Alcohol-related fatalities represent crash victims killed with
blood alcohol concentrations at any level above .01. At this
concentration, a person's blood contains 1 one-hundredth of 1 percent
alcohol.
[4] It should be noted that in addition to the factors discussed, other
elements, such as nonuse of seat belts or other occupant-protection
measures, might have affected the number of fatalities.
[5] BAC of 0.08 percent in Massachusetts is evidence of alcohol
impairment, but it is not illegal per se.
[6] Louisiana, New York, and Tennessee have 0.08 percent blood BAC laws
that will be effective during the latter half of 2003.
[7] TEA-21, as amended through the TEA-21 Restoration Act, established
these two penalty provisions.
[8] For the first 2 years, the transfer penalty was 1.5 percent of the
funds apportioned to the state's National Highway System, Surface
Transportation Program, and Interstate Maintenance funding, for each
penalty. This amount rose to 3 percent for each penalty in October
2002.
