Truck Safety
Share the Road Safely Pilot Initiative Showed Promise, but the Program's Future Success Is Uncertain Gao ID: GAO-06-916 September 8, 2006In 2004, over 5,000 people died on our nation's roads in crashes involving large trucks. The Department of Transportation's (DOT) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) operates truck safety programs, including Share the Road Safely (STRS), which has a goal to improve driving behavior around large trucks. At congressional direction, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) assumed responsibility for funding STRS in 2004, but returned STRS to FMCSA in 2006. The current transportation authorization bill requested GAO to update its 2003 evaluation of STRS. This report (1) describes the STRS initiatives DOT has implemented since 2003 and their design, (2) reviews evaluations of STRS initiatives, and (3) assesses DOT's plans for the future of STRS. GAO interviewed DOT and state officials, and reviewed program plans and evaluations.
During 2004 and 2005, Share the Road Safely funding was used to implement one initiative, a pilot in Washington State that focused on aggressive driving behaviors near or by large trucks. Known as Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks (TACT), it combined education, such as highway message signs, and high-visibility law enforcement to reduce aggressive driving. TACT received about $892,000 in federal and state funds. TACT was generally modeled on successful behavior modification programs, including Click It or Ticket (a program to encourage safety belt use), but was more complex to implement than past initiatives since many behaviors constitute aggressive driving and Washington State lacked a single aggressive driving law. In addition, NHTSA sought to demonstrate to FMCSA staff how to operate similar initiatives in the future. To this end, FMCSA sent a liaison to NHTSA as requested by Congress. Lastly, initiatives that were a part of STRS in 2003 were still pursued by FMCSA, but were not funded. DOT and Washington State officials conducted an evaluation of TACT that demonstrated that the initiative was successful and well-designed. The evaluation found that TACT significantly reduced the number and severity of unsafe driving acts near or by trucks. While the evaluation did not assess changes in crashes, improved driver behavior should logically lead to fewer crashes, injuries, and fatalities. GAO found that TACT's design of combining education with law enforcement better lent itself to reaching agency goals of fatality reduction than previous STRS initiatives that were purely educational. FMCSA plans to expand development of new TACT-like initiatives, but lacks resources and experience to do so. In addition, FMCSA plans to spend most of its 2006 STRS funds on educational initiatives, which lack information showing whether they improve driver behavior. In terms of TACT expansion, FMCSA is currently developing a TACT-like pilot in Pennsylvania and plans to roll out initiatives similar to TACT nationally by 2009. FMCSA, however, has few people dedicated to education and outreach and lacks NHTSA's experience with behavior modification initiatives. While FMCSA designated a liaison to learn about TACT-like initiatives, GAO continues to have concerns about FMCSA's limited experience with these initiatives. NHTSA has considerable experience with such initiatives, but its role in STRS is still evolving. Finally, FMCSA plans to spend the majority of its fiscal year 2006 STRS funds on initiatives that do not have evaluations showing their impacts.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-06-916, Truck Safety: Share the Road Safely Pilot Initiative Showed Promise, but the Program's Future Success Is Uncertain
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Report to Congressional Committees:
September 2006:
Truck Safety:
Share the Road Safely Pilot Initiative Showed Promise, but the
Program's Future Success Is Uncertain:
GAO-06-916:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-06-916, a report to congressional committees
Why GAO Did This Study:
In 2004, over 5,000 people died on our nation‘s roads in crashes
involving large trucks. The Department of Transportation‘s (DOT)
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) operates truck
safety programs, including Share the Road Safely (STRS), which has a
goal to improve driving behavior around large trucks. At congressional
direction, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
assumed responsibility for funding STRS in 2004, but returned STRS to
FMCSA in 2006. The current transportation authorization bill requested
GAO to update its 2003 evaluation of STRS. This report (1) describes
the STRS initiatives DOT has implemented since 2003 and their design,
(2) reviews evaluations of STRS initiatives, and (3) assesses DOT‘s
plans for the future of STRS. GAO interviewed DOT and state officials,
and reviewed program plans and evaluations.
What GAO Found:
During 2004 and 2005, Share the Road Safely funding was used to
implement one initiative, a pilot in Washington State that focused on
aggressive driving behaviors near or by large trucks. Known as
Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks (TACT), it combined education,
such as highway message signs, and high-visibility law enforcement to
reduce aggressive driving. TACT received about $892,000 in federal and
state funds. TACT was generally modeled on successful behavior
modification programs, including Click It or Ticket (a program to
encourage safety belt use), but was more complex to implement than past
initiatives since many behaviors constitute aggressive driving and
Washington State lacked a single aggressive driving law. In addition,
NHTSA sought to demonstrate to FMCSA staff how to operate similar
initiatives in the future. To this end, FMCSA sent a liaison to NHTSA
as requested by Congress. Lastly, initiatives that were a part of STRS
in 2003 were still pursued by FMCSA, but were not funded.
DOT and Washington State officials conducted an evaluation of TACT that
demonstrated that the initiative was successful and well-designed. The
evaluation found that TACT significantly reduced the number and
severity of unsafe driving acts near or by trucks. While the evaluation
did not assess changes in crashes, improved driver behavior should
logically lead to fewer crashes, injuries, and fatalities. GAO found
that TACT‘s design of combining education with law enforcement better
lent itself to reaching agency goals of fatality reduction than
previous STRS initiatives that were purely educational.
FMCSA plans to expand development of new TACT-like initiatives, but
lacks resources and experience to do so. In addition, FMCSA plans to
spend most of its 2006 STRS funds on educational initiatives, which
lack information showing whether they improve driver behavior. In terms
of TACT expansion, FMCSA is currently developing a TACT-like pilot in
Pennsylvania and plans to roll out initiatives similar to TACT
nationally by 2009. FMCSA, however, has few people dedicated to
education and outreach and lacks NHTSA‘s experience with behavior
modification initiatives. While FMCSA designated a liaison to learn
about TACT-like initiatives, GAO continues to have concerns about
FMCSA‘s limited experience with these initiatives. NHTSA has
considerable experience with such initiatives, but its role in STRS is
still evolving. Finally, FMCSA plans to spend the majority of its
fiscal year 2006 STRS funds on initiatives that do not have evaluations
showing their impacts.
Figure: Highway Message Sign and Law Enforcement Used in the Washington
State Pilot Initiative:
[See PDF for Image]
Sources: Washington Traffic Safety Commission and the KOMO television
station.
[End of Figure]
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommends that the Secretary of Transportation develop a strategy
for expanding TACT-like initiatives, and determine the best method for
using DOT‘s resources and expertise to modify driver behavior. DOT
officials clarified and updated information in a draft of this report
and generally agreed with the recommendations.
[Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-916].
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact Katherine Siggerud at
(202) 512-2834 or siggerudk@gao.gov.
[End of Section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
During 2004 and 2005, the Share the Road Safely Program Funded a
Reasonably Designed Education and Enforcement Pilot in Washington
State:
Evaluation of TACT Demonstrated Positive Results and Was Generally Well-
Designed:
FMCSA Plans Expanded Development of High-Visibility Law Enforcement
Campaigns Similar to TACT, but Lacks a Clear Strategy and Expertise:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments:
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Scope And Methodology:
Appendix II: TACT's Implementation of the Click It or Ticket Model:
Appendix III: Description of TACT Methodology for Analyzing Video
Footage of Driver Behavior:
Appendix IV: Staff Acknowledgments:
Table:
Table 1: Planned STRS Outreach Activities for Fiscal Year 2006:
Figures:
Figure 1: Number of Vehicle Occupants Killed in Large-Truck Crashes, by
Vehicle Type (1995-2004):
Figure 2: TACT Intervention and Comparison Corridors in Washington
State:
Figure 3: Television News Coverage Used for TACT:
Figure 4: TACT Highway Sign:
Figure 5: Rate of Violations per Observation Hour:
Figure 6: Percentages of Survey Respondents That Saw or Heard Media
about Giving Trucks More Space:
Figure 7: Expected Program Model Logic Results of TACT Initiative:
Figure 8: Planned STRS Funding for Fiscal Year 2006:
Abbreviations:
DOT: Department of Transportation:
FMCSA: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration:
MCSAP: Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program:
NHTSA: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:
SAFETEA-LU: Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation
Equity Act: A Legacy for Users:
STEP: Selective Traffic Enforcement Program:
STRS: Share the Road Safely:
TACT: Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks:
September 8, 2006:
The Honorable Ted Stevens:
Chairman:
The Honorable Daniel K. Inouye:
Co- Chairman:
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Don Young:
Chairman:
The Honorable James L. Oberstar:
Ranking Democratic Member:
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure:
House of Representatives:
In 2004, over 42,000 people died on our nation's roads. About 12
percent (5,190) of these fatalities occurred in collisions involving
large commercial trucks, in which many more occupants were killed in
the other vehicles than in the trucks. Furthermore, large-truck traffic
has increased significantly (33 percent) from 1994 through 2004. This
trend seems likely to continue as the Transportation Research Board
estimates that truck traffic will increase by 3.5 percent
annually.[Footnote 1] However, according to the Department of
Transportation's (DOT) Large Truck Crash Causation Study,[Footnote 2]
passenger-vehicle drivers were responsible for the majority of these
large commercial truck crashes. The study found that specific passenger-
vehicle driver behaviors, such as driving too fast for road conditions
and making illegal maneuvers, contributed significantly to crashes
involving large commercial trucks.
Within DOT, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is
responsible for improving the safety of commercial-vehicle operations,
which include interstate truck and motor coach (bus) companies, while
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has a
mission to reduce deaths, injuries, and economic losses resulting from
motor vehicle crashes. FMCSA has set a safety goal to reduce the rate
of fatalities from an estimated 2.81 per 100 million truck-miles
traveled in 1996 to no more than 1.65 by the end of 2008. In 2004, the
fatality rate for truck-related crashes was 2.3 per 100 million truck-
miles traveled. To work toward its 2008 goal, FMCSA leads enforcement
efforts such as working with and providing grants to states to enforce
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. In addition, FMCSA operates
several education and outreach programs. Share the Road Safely (STRS)
is one such program that aims to support FMCSA's goal by educating and
changing the driving behavior of both passenger-vehicle and truck
drivers so that they may interact safely with one another on the
road.[Footnote 3] NHTSA sets and enforces safety standards for motor
vehicles and motor vehicle equipment and provides grants to states to
improve passenger-vehicle driver safety.
In recent years, we raised concerns about FMCSA's education and
outreach efforts. In 2003, we reported that STRS lacked a clear program
strategy and included activities that were only tenuously linked to
program goals.[Footnote 4] We also reported that FMCSA had not recently
evaluated the program's effectiveness. Consequently, we recommended
that DOT ensure that STRS initiatives are directly linked to the
program's goals, and that DOT establish a systematic process for
evaluating the program's effectiveness. We also suggested that FMCSA
apply strategies used by other parts of DOT, such as NHTSA, to its
evaluations of STRS. In fiscal year 2004, Congress transferred funding
for the program to NHTSA, an agency that sets and enforces safety
standards for motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment and provides
grants to states to improve passenger-vehicle driver safety.
Additionally, the Conference Report accompanying the DOT appropriations
act for fiscal year 2004 indicates the conferees wanted NHTSA and FMCSA
to apply lessons learned from NHTSA's experience with high-visibility
law enforcement campaigns to STRS to educate drivers on how to drive
safely around large trucks. The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient
Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU)--which
authorized the federal surface transportation programs for highways,
highway safety, and transit between 2005 and 2009--annually provided $3
million to NHTSA and $1 million to FMCSA for administering education
and outreach activities associated with commercial-vehicle safety, such
as STRS. The Conference Report accompanying the DOT appropriations act
for fiscal year 2006, however, indicates that the conferees allocated
the entire $4 million for education and outreach activities associated
with commercial-vehicle safety to FMCSA, including $500,000 for STRS
initiatives.
SAFETEA-LU also asked us to update our 2003 evaluation of STRS to
determine if the program has achieved reductions in the number and
severity of commercial motor vehicle crashes, including reductions in
the number of deaths and the severity of injuries sustained in these
crashes. To update our 2003 STRS report and assess the impact of the
program on the interaction between large commercial trucks and
passenger vehicles, we (1) describe what STRS initiatives DOT has
implemented since 2003 and assess whether its initiatives are
reasonably designed; (2) review the results of DOT evaluations of STRS
initiatives and assess the evaluation methods; and (3) assess DOT's
plans for the future of STRS initiatives.
To determine how STRS has changed since 2003 and whether the design of
its initiatives is reasonable, we interviewed DOT officials and
reviewed agency documents. Additionally, we interviewed FMCSA, NHTSA,
and local officials involved in the operation of the STRS pilot
initiative in Washington State and reviewed related program documents.
We examined the design of the Washington State pilot to determine how
it compares with other initiatives intended to modify driver behavior,
and whether the pilot's activities links to agency goals. We did not
assess the design of other STRS initiatives because they were not
funded in 2004 and 2005, and we reported on these initiatives in our
2003 report. To determine what the evaluation of STRS pilot initiative
showed, we reviewed evaluation plans and evaluation results and spoke
with DOT and state officials responsible for conducting the evaluation.
We also compared DOT's evaluation approach with accepted evaluation
methods. Although SAFETEA-LU asked us to determine if STRS achieved
reductions in the number of deaths and the severity of injuries
sustained in commercial-vehicle crashes, DOT's evaluation did not
assess these outcomes because the number of fatalities and injuries on
DOT's study corridors were too low to reliably measure any appreciable
change. Therefore, we did not discuss in this report STRS's impact on
specific numbers of fatalities and injuries. To assess DOT's future
plans for STRS, we interviewed program administrators at DOT and
reviewed provided budget and planning documents. We also compared the
planned initiatives (1) with high-visibility law enforcement campaign
models, shown to change behavior by prior research, to assess their
implementation and (2) with the initiatives described in our prior
report to see how they have evolved. We conducted our review from
October 2005 through July 2006 in accordance with generally accepted
government auditing standards. Appendix I provides additional details
of our scope and methodology.
Results in Brief:
During fiscal years 2004 and 2005, the Share the Road Safely program
funded one initiative that focused primarily on trying to reduce
aggressive driving[Footnote 5] behavior associated with car and truck
crashes in Washington State. We found that this initiative was
reasonably designed, and that it for the most part followed a model
that combines education with enforcement activities. The Washington
Traffic Safety Commission was the lead agency on this pilot initiative,
known as Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks (TACT), with NHTSA
providing significant implementation assistance and approximately
$565,000 in funding. FMCSA developed initial plans for a multistate
education and enforcement project, and after Congress provided STRS
funds to NHTSA, FMCSA worked with NHTSA and Washington State. FMCSA
also provided assistance for TACT that included initial crash analyses,
reviews of project plans, and $100,000 in grants for enforcement. TACT
centered on two, 2-week high-visibility law enforcement waves in July
and September, 2005, along with outreach efforts, such as television
news coverage and radio advertisements, to inform motorists of the
dangers of aggressive driving and of the program's initiatives. TACT
planning documents state that the pilot was a high-visibility law
enforcement campaign patterned on the Selective Traffic Enforcement
Program (STEP) model, which combines educational and enforcement
activities and has been shown by prior research to be more effective at
changing driver behavior than education alone. NHTSA's Click It or
Ticket safety belt campaign[Footnote 6] is an example of a successful
high-visibility law enforcement campaign that is based on the STEP
model. Our analysis of TACT's implementation shows that it conformed to
the high-visibility law enforcement campaign used in NHTSA's Click It
or Ticket campaign, with a couple of exceptions. For instance, the
Click It or Ticket model calls for television advertising, which TACT
did not use because of its limited funding. Furthermore, although TACT
was similar to other high-visibility law enforcement campaigns, it
dealt with more complex issues. For example, Washington has no one
specific law against aggressive driving, so officials had to ensure
that the courts would cooperate with TACT's enforcement efforts. By
contrast, Washington's laws specifically require safety belt use;
therefore, enforcement during Click It or Ticket campaigns is more
straightforward. To support the transfer of knowledge about
implementing high-visibility law enforcement campaigns from NHTSA to
FMCSA, the Conference Report accompanying the DOT appropriations act
for fiscal year 2005 expressed the conferees' expectation that FMCSA
would detail one staff member to serve as a liaison to NHTSA. In
response, FMCSA hired a liaison who came aboard after the completion of
TACT's last enforcement wave. Finally, other initiatives, such as
educational brochures, that were a part of STRS in our 2003 review were
not funded in 2004 and 2005, but FMCSA continued to disseminate
available education and outreach materials.
DOT and Washington State officials conducted an evaluation of TACT that
demonstrated the pilot's success in reducing aggressive driver behavior
and found that the initiative had an acceptable experimental design for
making this determination. Officials found reductions in the rates and
seriousness of unsafe driving acts when they analyzed video footage of
driver behavior before and after the pilot. Specifically, the rate of
unsafe driving acts per hour was cut almost in half. Additionally,
surveys of motorists demonstrated that TACT's message of leaving more
space around trucks successfully reached its target audience.
Furthermore, we found that the evaluation was well-designed. It
compared intervention groups that received educational and enforcement
efforts with comparison groups that did not. This comparison enabled
program administrators to attribute any positive changes in driver
behavior to TACT initiatives. TACT's evaluation design represents a
positive step toward meeting our 2003 recommendation that DOT establish
a systematic process for evaluating the effectiveness of STRS. Although
the TACT evaluation did not provide data regarding the impact of the
pilot on the number of crashes in the corridors because those numbers
were too low to assess, the evaluation relied on intermediate measures
such as improved driver behavior, which should logically result in
decreased crashes, injuries, and fatalities. In addition, by combining
education and enforcement, the pilot was better designed to reach
agency goals of improving driver behavior to reduce fatalities than
past STRS initiatives that were focused solely on educating motorists
on how trucks and cars should drive around each other, thereby making
progress toward meeting our 2003 recommendation that STRS initiatives
link to STRS goals.
Given the success of the TACT initiative in improving driver behavior,
FMCSA is encouraging states to adopt TACT-like initiatives; however,
the extent to which FMCSA will be able to successfully develop and
implement these initiatives is uncertain. Furthermore, FMCSA's STRS
plans for fiscal year 2006 focus on initiatives that are strictly
educational, which research has shown are more limited in their ability
to improve driver behavior than educational initiatives linked with
enforcement. However, FMCSA plans to evaluate the impact of these
educational activities. FMCSA officials stated that by fiscal year
2009, they plan a nationwide rollout of initiatives, like TACT, that
rely on education and enforcement to address poor driver behavior
around commercial trucks. In the interim, FMCSA is contracting with
Pennsylvania to conduct another TACT pilot, using primarily Motor
Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP) grants and state funding.
FMCSA has recently set up a transition team of FMCSA and NHTSA staff to
help develop a plan for achieving its 2009 goal and to resolve issues
such as identifying a funding source for a nationwide program. In
addition, FMCSA's limited experience in implementing such initiatives
raises concerns about its ability to develop and implement a nationwide
program. For example, FMCSA has few people dedicated to education and
outreach programs, and some officials commented that the agency lacks
NHTSA's experience overseeing the implementation of behavior
modification initiatives. Also, one of these officials, the FMCSA
liaison to NHTSA, missed opportunities for learning about the operation
of TACT and other high-visibility law enforcement campaigns because of
the time it took to fill the position. Furthermore, although FMCSA
announced that states could apply for MCSAP funds to use for TACT-like
initiatives, it did not provide guidance on how to proceed, and
applications for these funds in 2006 were due before the evaluation of
TACT was completed. Finally, FMCSA plans to spend the majority of its
$500,000 fiscal year 2006 STRS funds on enhancing its Web site and
sending brochures and other informational materials to commercial-and
passenger-vehicle drivers--initiatives that are strictly educational.
However, research has shown that the ability of educational initiatives
such as these to improve driver behavior is more limited than when
education is linked with enforcement. After we discussed our findings
with FMCSA, officials decided to ask its contractor to evaluate these
initiatives in fiscal year 2006, a year earlier than planned, with an
expected evaluation report completed by fiscal year 2007. However,
FMCSA has yet to identify specific performance goals and measures.
We have concerns about the ability of the STRS initiatives to continue
to improve driver behavior, given FMCSA's limited staff, experience,
and systematic plans for expanding high-visibility law enforcement
campaigns and its focus on educational initiatives. Therefore, we are
recommending that DOT continue to develop a comprehensive strategy to
describe how it will achieve its goal of implementing TACT nationwide,
and how STRS initiatives will contribute to this goal. We also
recommend that the agency complete and execute plans to evaluate STRS
outreach activities that are purely educational and discontinue
activities where no impact can be demonstrated. Lastly, we recommend
that DOT monitor whether FMCSA has sufficient staff and institutional
experience to successfully develop and implement future high-visibility
law enforcement campaigns, and, if it does not, determine how to use
existing expertise within DOT to focus on and support STRS initiatives
that combine education and enforcement. In commenting on a draft of
this report, DOT officials generally agreed with our recommendations.
The officials also clarified and updated information, such as the
status of their evaluations, and provided technical comments, which we
incorporated as appropriate.
Background:
The occupants of other vehicles are several times more likely to die in
crashes involving large commercial trucks than the occupants of the
trucks.[Footnote 7] From 1995 through 2004, there were 51,791 people
killed in large-truck crashes. Of this total, 40,438 were occupants of
other vehicles, while 7,131 were the occupants of large trucks and
4,222 were nonmotorists, such as pedestrians. Figure 1 shows the number
of passenger-vehicle and large-truck occupants killed in collisions
involving large trucks from 1995 through 2004, according to NHTSA's
Fatality Analysis Reporting System.[Footnote 8]
Figure 1: Number of Vehicle Occupants Killed in Large-Truck Crashes, by
Vehicle Type (1995-2004):
[See PDF for image]
Source: NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System
(http://www.fars.nhtsa.dot.gov).
[End of figure]
The Large Truck Crash Causation Study found behavior by drivers of
passenger vehicles and trucks responsible for the majority of these
large-truck crashes. In a large majority of crashes involving a single
truck and a single passenger vehicle, driver behavior was deemed a
critical reason for the crash--about 88 percent when the critical
reason was assigned to the truck and about 89 percent when assigned to
the passenger vehicle. The remaining critical reasons are primarily
related to the vehicle and environment. The Large Truck Crash Causation
Study lists driving too fast for road conditions, making illegal
maneuvers, and driving under work pressure as factors contributing to
crashes between large trucks and passenger vehicles, but the study does
not list a specific factor for aggressive driving.
FMCSA's education and outreach activities represent a small portion of
its total efforts to reduce fatalities caused by collisions involving
large commercial vehicles. FMCSA, established in 2000 as a separate
administration under DOT by the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of
1999, is responsible for improving the safety of commercial-vehicle
operations on the nation's highways. The agency's overall goal is to
reduce the rate of fatalities resulting from collisions involving large
commercial trucks from the 1996 rate of 2.8 fatalities per 100 million
truck miles traveled to 1.65 by 2008. FMCSA carries out its mission
primarily through regulatory and enforcement programs, including
developing and enforcing Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations,
administering MCSAP grants to states, and leading enforcement actions
against operators who violate regulations. FMCSA also undertakes
education and outreach activities, such as posting on its Web site
regulations pertaining to the licensing of commercial drivers or the
transporting of hazardous materials, and is also allocated funding for
specific education and outreach programs. In fiscal year 2006,
education and outreach funding accounted for about $4 million of
FMCSA's over $490 million budget. Also in fiscal year 2006, FMCSA plans
to use education and outreach funding for activities supporting its
Safety Belt program, which targeted commercial-vehicle drivers; public
outreach on hiring motor coach services; and consumer outreach on using
household goods movers, among other programs.
STRS is one education and outreach program intended to help reduce the
number of crashes involving large commercial vehicles. FMCSA assumed
responsibility for the program in 2000, when Congress established
FMCSA. STRS targeted all highway users and sought to modify driver
behavior by increasing their awareness of the inherent dangers of
driving in and around large commercial vehicles. STRS attempted to
increase drivers' awareness of these dangers through a variety of
channels, such as publishing informational literature, developing
material for driver's education courses, and issuing public service
announcements. Additionally, FMCSA partnered with public and private
organizations nationwide to promote the STRS mission. One of these
partners, the American Trucking Association, now operates its own
independent Share the Road program that seeks to educate the public
through outreach and media events held in cities across the nation.
In 2003, the House Report accompanying the DOT appropriations act asked
GAO to evaluate the effectiveness of the STRS initiatives. Our report
found that some STRS initiatives did not clearly link to the program's
goals, and that evaluations of the program did not fully measure its
outcomes. Our review also noted that research shows that attempts to
modify driver behavior are more effective when educational activities
are combined with enforcement efforts. Subsequently, we recommended
that DOT ensure that STRS initiatives directly link with the program's
goals, and that DOT establish a systematic process for evaluating the
effectiveness of the program. We also suggested that FMCSA could apply
strategies used by other parts of DOT, such as NHTSA, to its
evaluations of STRS. Such strategies include measuring targeted
knowledge, attitude, and behavior changes before and after program
exposure to assess change.
For fiscal years 2004 and 2005, Congress transferred funding for STRS
from FMCSA to NHTSA, with FMCSA retaining a supporting role. In the
Conference Report accompanying the DOT appropriations act for fiscal
year 2004, the conferees asked NHTSA to work with FMCSA to educate the
motoring public on how to share the road safely with commercial motor
vehicles. The appropriation asked NHTSA and FMCSA to apply lessons
learned from NHTSA's experience in high-visibility law enforcement
campaigns to STRS initiatives to educate drivers on how to drive safety
around large trucks. NHTSA operates a number of programs intended to
promote safe behavior by passenger-vehicle drivers. One such program is
Click It or Ticket, which evaluations have shown to be effective at
increasing safety belt use by combining extensive paid and earned
media[Footnote 9] coverage and high-visibility law enforcement waves.
Furthermore, the Conference Report accompanying the DOT appropriations
act for fiscal year 2005 expressed the conferees' view that FMCSA
should assign a staff member to NHTSA to act as a liaison for STRS.
FMCSA officials told us that the rationale for establishing this
liaison position was to transfer knowledge to FMCSA on the operation of
education and enforcement campaigns.
NHTSA's Click It or Ticket program is a high-visibility law enforcement
campaign that is based on the STEP model. According to NHTSA officials,
STEP is a model that the enforcement community uses to announce,
usually through press releases, some increase in enforcement of some
violation or identified problem area, such as not wearing a safety
belt. Over time, this model has become more sophisticated to include
more and better targeted media campaigns to announce enforcement. These
media campaigns should include both extensive (1) earned media that
include news coverage and (2) paid media, such as radio and television
advertising, to explain the problem the program is trying to address
and the stepped up enforcement. NHTSA officials refer to this more
sophisticated version of a STEP model as a high-visibility law
enforcement campaign.
During 2004 and 2005, the Share the Road Safely Program Funded a
Reasonably Designed Education and Enforcement Pilot in Washington
State:
During 2004 and 2005, NHTSA funded the Share the Road Safely program
and implemented an aggressive driving pilot initiative in Washington
State. Known as Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks (TACT), it
combined education and law enforcement activities in an effort to
reduce aggressive driving between passenger vehicles and trucks.
Another objective of the pilot was for NHTSA to show FMCSA staff how to
operate similar initiatives in the future. TACT generally conformed to
the proven high-visibility law enforcement model, although it dealt
with more complex issues than previous high-visibility law enforcement
campaigns. TACT's design and implementation linked to the STRS goal of
changing driver behavior, whereas past STRS initiatives sometimes did
not link to goals or were not designed to maximize the potential for
success. In addition, Congress requested FMCSA to use a liaison to
facilitate the transfer of knowledge about high-visibility law
enforcement campaigns from NHTSA to FMCSA. Lastly, educational
initiatives that were a part of STRS in 2003 were pursued by FMCSA,
although not funded under NHTSA in 2004 and 2005.
DOT Helped Establish and Operate an Aggressive Driving Pilot Initiative
in Washington State:
According to DOT officials, Share the Road Safely program funding has
supported an aggressive driving pilot initiative in Washington State
starting in 2004. In 2004, DOT selected Washington State for the pilot
initiative and signed a cooperative agreement with the Washington
Traffic Safety Commission. The pilot, known as TACT, combined high-
visibility law enforcement waves with education and outreach activities
in an effort to reduce aggressive driving between passenger-vehicle and
large-truck drivers. TACT focused on four interstate highway corridors,
each covering a distance of approximately 25 miles. (See fig. 2.) Two
intervention corridors in the western part of the state received media
messages and 2 weeks of increased, high-visibility law enforcement
waves in July and September, 2005, while two comparison corridors did
not. During these waves, law enforcement officers patrolled the
intervention corridors in marked and unmarked patrol cars, in state
patrol aerial units when weather permitted, and from the cabs of
semitrucks to target unsafe driving around large trucks.
Figure 2: TACT Intervention and Comparison Corridors in Washington
State:
[See PDF for image]
Source: GAO depiction of NHTSA graphic.
[End of figure]
The TACT pilot initiative used paid radio advertising and earned media,
such as local news coverage, to inform the targeted audience of the
dangers of aggressive driving related to trucks and to announce that
law enforcement officers would issue tickets for such behavior. TACT's
radio advertisement was aired over 6,000 times during the course of the
enforcement waves, and eight local television stations dedicated
coverage to the pilot. Figure 3 shows an example of the earned media
coverage.
Figure 3: Television News Coverage Used for TACT:
[See PDF for image]
Sources: Washington Traffic Safety Commission and the KOMO television
station.
[End of figure]
DOT officials said they selected Washington State to participate in
this pilot because of the state's experience with other related safety
initiatives, its accurate fatality and crash database, and its strong
relationships with key stakeholders. TACT built upon a previous STEP
model campaign, Step Up and R.I.D.E.,[Footnote 10] which operated in
Washington for several years. In the Step Up and R.I.D.E. program,
Washington partnered with the local trucking industry to periodically
place police officers in commercial vehicles to identify and issue
citations to drivers observed committing offenses. DOT officials also
stated that Washington has shown itself capable of successfully
implementing and evaluating a high-visibility law enforcement campaign-
-specifically its Click It or Ticket campaign, which in 2002 increased
safety belt use from about 80 percent to 95 percent. Additionally, DOT
cited Washington as having good data on crashes and fatalities. In a
2005 report, we also recognized that Washington has very good
cooperation among state agencies involved in crash data collection and
reporting, and a strong relationship with its FMCSA division
office.[Footnote 11] Finally, according to DOT officials, a particular
strength of Washington is that the Washington Traffic Safety
Commission, the lead organization in implementing the TACT initiative,
comprises multiple state agencies, including all of the agencies that
are participating in TACT, thus setting the stage for easy coordination
and cooperation among participating agencies.
Federal, state, and local organizations participated in and contributed
about $892,000 for the planning and operation of TACT. A steering
committee led by the Washington Traffic Safety Commission planned and
administered the pilot project. Other partners on the steering
committee included the Washington DOT, the Washington State Patrol, the
Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, and the Washington Trucking
Association. Officials on the steering committee believed having all of
these groups involved in developing the pilot was important to the
successful implementation of the pilot. The Washington Traffic Safety
Commission also contributed $118,000 to the pilot for project
management and communications. Local and state police made officers
available for the enforcement waves, and the Washington Trucking
Association worked with trucking companies to provide decoy trucks and
drivers. NHTSA provided considerable assistance in developing and
implementing the initiative and supplied the majority of TACT's
funding, awarding $497,000 in fiscal year 2004 and an additional
$68,000 for evaluation activities in fiscal year 2005. Congress also
provided NHTSA with an additional $99,000 for the TACT initiative in
fiscal year 2005. FMCSA did TACT's initial planning and provided
ongoing assistance, including reviewing plans. It also provided
$100,000 in fiscal year 2005 for TACT's enforcement efforts through
MCSAP.[Footnote 12]
FMCSA Sought to Learn How to Operate a High-Visibility Law Enforcement
Campaign:
DOT officials told us that a goal for FMCSA in the TACT initiative was
to gain institutional knowledge on the operation of high-visibility law
enforcement campaigns, such as Click It or Ticket. These campaigns
combine education and outreach activities with high-visibility law
enforcement to bring about a change in driver behavior. Our 2003 report
stated that highway safety experts agree that attempts to modify
behavior are more effective when educational and enforcement efforts
are used together. However, the STRS initiatives we identified in our
2003 report were purely educational.[Footnote 13] The report added that
FMCSA could improve STRS by drawing from NHTSA's considerable
experience with high-visibility law enforcement campaigns like Click It
or Ticket, which has been widely considered effective in increasing the
rate of safety belt use. Furthermore, a NHTSA evaluation report found
that 10 states that used the Click It or Ticket model had significantly
greater increases in safety belt use compared with states that
attempted to increase safety belt use through other initiatives. TACT
offered FMCSA an opportunity to learn from NHTSA's experience with high-
visibility law enforcement campaigns and learn how to develop similar
aggressive driving initiatives in other states. To further ensure this
transfer of knowledge as requested by conferees in the Conference
Report accompanying its 2005 appropriations act, FMCSA hired and
detailed a staff member to NHTSA to act as a communications liaison for
STRS. The liaison was involved in some facets of TACT, including
meeting with its steering committee and preparing briefings on the
pilot. According to DOT officials, however, the liaison came aboard
after the completion of the last enforcement wave--later in this
report, we discuss this matter further in relation to the future of
STRS initiatives.
Pilot Generally Conformed to the Proven High-Visibility Law Enforcement
Campaign Model with Some Variation, but Dealt with More Complex Issues:
Our analysis of TACT's design and implementation shows that it
generally conformed to the high-visibility law enforcement campaign
model as intended, but varied in a few aspects. Specifically, TACT was
modeled after NHTSA's Click It or Ticket campaign. In modeling Click It
or Ticket's approach, officials in the TACT program collected data
before and after its enforcement waves to identify behavior changes; it
had highly visible enforcement on each day of its enforcement waves;
and it had used both paid and earned media to publicize its
enforcement.
TACT did deviate from the Click It or Ticket model in two ways. First,
the pilot did not use paid television advertising. Washington State
officials explained that this was because of the program's limited
budget. While evaluations of Click It or Ticket show that radio
advertisements were effective in reaching the motoring public, radio is
not as effective a medium as television. Second, the media for the TACT
pilot described the enforcement campaign as zero tolerance as
prescribed by the Click It or Ticket model, and enforcement was stepped
up; however, law enforcement officers participating in TACT issued
warnings instead of citations in 28 percent of the traffic stops. NHTSA
officials explained that law enforcement officers always have
discretion on whether to issue citations, and what is more important is
that the public perceive an increase in law enforcement. Furthermore,
they explained there is no research about the most effective level of
citation tickets. See appendix II for a detailed comparison of TACT's
implementation of the Click It or Ticket model.
Although TACT is based on the high-visibility law enforcement campaign
model, it deals with more complex issues than previous initiatives. In
the case of Click It or Ticket, law enforcement is simply checking for
safety belt use. With TACT, there are a number of behaviors that may
constitute aggressive driving, including tailgating, speeding, and
unsafe merging. These multiple factors also made it more difficult to
develop a primary message for TACT to communicate to the public. TACT
administrators, for example, determined that they had to choose a
primary behavioral theme--leaving more space around trucks--to
communicate to motorists, although obeying the speed limit and staying
out of a truck's blind spots also are important and were secondary
themes. See figure 4 for a depiction of TACT's selected message. This
message was posted on 16 highway signs in the intervention corridors.
Additionally, TACT was more difficult to institute from a legal
standpoint. Washington has a primary safety belt law, meaning that
officers can pull over drivers solely for not wearing their safety
belts. In the case of TACT, however, Washington has no single
aggressive driving law. Washington State officials told us they had to
ensure that courts would be willing to enforce the tickets because
police officers issued citations for violations under a number of laws.
Figure 4: TACT Highway Sign:
[See PDF for image]
Source: Washington Traffic Safety Commission.
[End of figure]
Previous STRS Initiatives Were Not Funded under NHTSA:
In fiscal years 2004 and 2005, STRS did not fund initiatives that were
a part of the program in 2003. All STRS funds in fiscal years 2004 and
2005 were directed to the TACT pilot. According to FMCSA officials,
however, they continued to disseminate education and outreach
materials. For instance, the No-Zone campaign--a major initiative of
STRS--was not funded during this period.[Footnote 14] FMCSA did,
however, keep No-Zone information available on its Web site and
responded to requests for educational material. For example, according
to FMCSA officials, during this period they distributed over 200,000
copies of the No-Zone brochure through venues such as conferences and
industry events. Also prior to TACT, FMCSA developed a curriculum for
teaching students about sharing the road with trucks. FMCSA completed
work on the curriculum and produced a video for the course, and it
distributed the materials during fiscal years 2004 and 2005, including
1,500 copies of the video.
Evaluation of TACT Demonstrated Positive Results and Was Generally Well-
Designed:
DOT and Washington State officials conducted an evaluation of TACT that
demonstrated the initiative's success and was generally well-designed.
Specifically, analysis of videotaped driver behavior showed reductions
in aggressive driving, and targeted motorists reported significant
exposure to the initiative's message. Additionally, the evaluation
followed accepted experimental design principles by comparing changes
on two intervention highway corridors, which were exposed to the
initiative's message and enforcement, with changes on two comparison
highway corridors, which were not exposed to the message. This
experimental setup enabled program administrators to attribute positive
changes in driver behavior to TACT initiatives. The evaluation did not
assess changes in crashes, but increased driver awareness and improved
driver behavior should logically lead to reduced crashes, injuries, and
fatalities. Also, TACT's design of combining education outreach with
law enforcement better lent itself to reaching STRS goals than previous
initiatives that were purely educational.
TACT Improved Driver Behavior and Public Awareness:
The TACT evaluation demonstrated that the initiative was able to
produce improvements in driver behavior. TACT evaluated changes in
driver behavior by recording video footage of drivers in the four
corridors and using three groups of reviewers--police officers, truck
drivers, and Washington Traffic Safety Commission staff--to rate the
seriousness of any unsafe driving acts. (See app. III for a more
detailed explanation of how this video footage was analyzed.) This
analysis found that the rate of unsafe driving acts per observation
hour was nearly cut in half, from 5.80 to 3.05, for the intervention
corridors, as compared with a slight decrease, from 4.03 to 3.92, for
the comparison corridor. When controlled for the preenforcement rates,
these data represent a 46 percent decrease in unsafe driving in the
intervention corridors. The comparison corridors also had 1.85 times as
many violations per hour than the intervention corridors when the data
are controlled for the corridors' respective violation rates prior to
enforcement. (Fig. 5 shows the rate of violations per observation
hour.) Also, analysis of driver behavior in the intervention corridors
found that crash risk decreased and driver behavior was less illegal
and less intimidating, among other things.
Figure 5: Rate of Violations per Observation Hour:
[See PDF for image]
Sources: Washington Traffic Safety Commission and NHTSA.
[End of figure]
The TACT initiative improved driver behavior by successfully reaching
its intended audience. TACT evaluators demonstrated this by using a
survey to measure the extent to which the initiative changed the
awareness of the target audience. In each of the four communities
selected for the project, TACT administrators distributed surveys to
the public at driver licensing offices both before and after the
enforcement waves. For example, the percentage of respondents on the
intervention corridors that reported general exposure to media about
giving trucks more space nearly quadrupled, from about 18 to 67
percent. These data contrast with data for the comparison corridors,
where the percentage only increased from about 17 to 20 percent. (Fig.
6 shows the percentages of respondents that reported hearing or seeing
TACT-related media outreach.) Additionally, the evaluation found
significant increases in the percentages of respondents on the
intervention corridors that specifically reported hearing the radio
message and seeing the TACT road sign, television, and newspaper
messages. Furthermore, surveys of drivers also showed a significant
increase in drivers reporting that they leave more space when passing
trucks (the intended behavioral change theme of the project) from about
16 to 24 percent for the intervention corridors as compared with a
slight increase from about 15 to 16 percent for the comparison
corridors.
Figure 6: Percentages of Survey Respondents That Saw or Heard Media
about Giving Trucks More Space:
[See PDF for image]
Sources: Washington Traffic Safety Commission and NHTSA.
[End of figure]
The Evaluation of TACT Was Generally Well-Designed and Links Results to
Its Intended Goal of Crash Reduction:
We found that the evaluation of TACT was generally well-designed, since
it appropriately used an experimental design to attribute outcomes to
TACT's initiatives. An experimental design permits researchers to
attribute outcomes to the effects of the program and rule out other
influences. Often with this kind of evaluation design, the participants
in the intervention group are exposed to the initiative, while similar
participants in the comparison group are unexposed. Aside from the
initiative, participants experience the same influences. That is, they
face conditions that are alike during the same period. More
specifically, the evaluation of the TACT initiative exposed drivers in
the intervention corridors to paid and earned media and high-visibility
law enforcement waves, while simultaneously leaving unexposed
comparable drivers in similar comparison corridors. Then the evaluation
compared outcomes in the two groups. This procedure was repeated in two
additional corridors to make sure that any detected differences in
outcomes were not unique to the first two corridors. Our 2003 review of
STRS recommended that DOT establish a systematic process for evaluating
the effectiveness of the program. Therefore, the evaluation of TACT's
methodology represents a positive step toward meeting our 2003
recommendation.
The evaluation report concludes that the initiative was a success, but
it did not report on TACT's effect on the long-term results of the
initiative, such as the impact on the number of crashes, despite
earlier plans to do so. Both TACT implementation plans and a NHTSA
official stated that the evaluation would assess the impact of the
initiative on the number of crashes in the intervention corridors.
However, as the evaluation report states, it is difficult to determine
changes in crashes given the low number of crashes in Washington State;
therefore, intermediate measures for evaluating the initiative had to
be relied upon. NHTSA officials stated that although the evaluation was
unable to report on long-term results, the program's finding of
improved driver behavior around trucks would logically indicate an
expected decrease in truck-related crashes, injuries, and fatalities.
Furthermore, NHTSA does not evaluate individual Click It or Ticket
campaigns, which are considered to successfully modify behavior, for
their effect on long-term results such as fatality reduction.[Footnote
15] Figure 7 shows how TACT linked short-term results (such as
awareness and knowledge of the dangers of driving around trucks) and
intermediate results (such as changed driver behavior around trucks) to
the long-term results of fewer truck-related crashes, injuries, and
fatalities.
Figure 7: Expected Program Model Logic Results of TACT Initiative:
[See PDF for image]
Source: GAO analysis of Program Logic Model and TACT design and
evaluation plans. Model adapted from Ellen Taylor-Powell, The Logic
Model: A Program Performance Framework (University of Wisconsin
Cooperative Extension: Madison, WI).
[End of figure]
TACT Is Better Designed to Successfully Reach Agency Goals Than Past
STRS Initiatives:
The design of TACT provided a better opportunity for successfully
reaching desired results and goals than past STRS initiatives. Our 2003
report on STRS found that some of FMCSA's education and outreach
initiatives were not directly connected to agency goals and recommended
that future initiatives be so connected. While program initiatives that
exclusively rely on education and outreach, such as distributing
informational pamphlets or advertising, can increase awareness and
encourage the intended behaviors, thereby linking to a program's goals,
attempts to modify the behaviors of drivers are more effective when
educational initiatives are combined with enforcement. This conclusion
is supported by the evaluation of past initiatives to change driver
behavior, particularly of efforts to increase safety belt use.[Footnote
16] For example, a 2002 study by NHTSA included data from Texas, which
showed that while the baseline percentage of individuals wearing safety
belts (80 percent) increased slightly with advertising alone, the
combination of advertising and enforcement caused the number to
increase another 6 percent. TACT's use of media, road signs, and other
educational outreach tools therefore directly linked to the STRS goal
of decreasing unsafe driver behavior around commercial vehicles by
truck drivers and passenger-vehicle drivers, and incorporating high-
visibility law enforcement increased the initiative's potential for
successfully reaching that goal. In effect, TACT represents a positive
step toward meeting our 2003 recommendation that STRS initiatives
clearly link to STRS goals.
FMCSA Plans Expanded Development of High-Visibility Law Enforcement
Campaigns Similar to TACT, but Lacks a Clear Strategy and Expertise:
Following the success of TACT in Washington State, FMCSA is developing
plans encouraging states to adopt similar initiatives in other states;
however, its strategy for expanding TACT and its ability to manage
these initiatives remain unknown. FMCSA officials stated that they plan
a nationwide rollout of initiatives similar to TACT by 2009, and that
in the interim, they are currently developing another TACT pilot in
Pennsylvania. FMCSA, however, has yet to articulate a strategy for
expanding TACT into a nationwide program or to identify funding.
Additionally, FMCSA's ability to administer future TACT initiatives is
uncertain, since FMCSA has limited experience with high-visibility law
enforcement campaigns. Finally, FMCSA plans to spend the majority of
its STRS funds on initiatives that are purely educational, even though
little information is available to show that these activities will
improve driver behavior and contribute to reducing fatalities.
FMCSA Plans to Implement More TACT-Like Initiatives but Has Yet to
Articulate Its Strategy:
FMCSA plans to expand initiatives similar to TACT to new states and,
eventually, nationwide. FMCSA officials stated that they plan to issue
a Federal Register notice in fiscal year 2008 before rolling out TACT
on a nationwide basis in 2009. In the interim, FMCSA is currently
developing plans to implement another TACT pilot in Pennsylvania, using
primarily MCSAP grants and state funds. There, FMCSA will contract with
the Pennsylvania State Police to develop and operate a high-visibility
law enforcement campaign in at least two intervention corridors and two
comparison corridors in an area with a high concentration of commercial-
vehicle fatalities and crashes. Pennsylvania will also be responsible
for evaluating its pilot. Agency officials anticipate this pilot taking
18 months to complete. FMCSA also plans to conduct two additional
pilots in fiscal year 2007, but has not yet identified states.[Footnote
17] Additionally, FMCSA issued a Federal Register notice in March 2006
stating that states could use MCSAP High Priority grants[Footnote 18]
to comply with provisions of SAFETEA-LU that require states to conduct
comprehensive and highly visible traffic enforcement and commercial-
vehicle safety inspection programs in high-risk locations and areas.
FMCSA added that these initiatives could be similar to TACT.
FMCSA officials stated that they will develop guidance for states to
follow, but gaps remain in their strategy for expanding TACT
nationwide. Agency documents state that the Washington State TACT pilot
and the future Pennsylvania initiative will form the foundation of a
best practices guide to share with states. However, FMCSA has yet to
articulate how it will expand TACT from several planned pilot
initiatives in 2007 to a nationwide program 2 years later, or how this
expansion will be funded. Additionally, although FMCSA enabled states
to apply for MCSAP High Priority grants to develop initiatives similar
to TACT, FMCSA did not provide states with the guidance to do so.
Applications for these funds were due before the Washington TACT
evaluation report was published; therefore, states seeking to begin
similar initiatives needed to design their own initiatives without the
benefit of Washington's experience. Finally, FMCSA officials stated
that no state applied for a fiscal year 2006 grant before the
application deadline in the Federal Register; however, FMCSA will
accept applications until the end of fiscal year 2006 or until the
available funds are awarded.
Although FMCSA has plans for a nationwide expansion of TACT, the
majority of FMCSA's STRS funds will be spent on other activities.
Program planning documents state that FMCSA has decided to transition
STRS to focus on developing initiatives similar to TACT in other
states, but FMCSA plans to invest just $150,000 of its $500,000 fiscal
year 2006 STRS budget to do this.[Footnote 19] FMCSA officials told us
that STRS funds would pay for the evaluation component of this
initiative, and FMCSA will supplement activities with MCSAP funds. The
$150,000 fiscal year 2006 STRS investment in these future initiatives
is significantly less than the approximately $664,000 in STRS funds
provided solely to TACT in fiscal years 2004 and 2005.
FMCSA's Ability to Manage Future Initiatives Is Unclear and NHTSA's
Role Is Still Evolving:
FMCSA's ability to administer future high-visibility law enforcement
campaigns and NHTSA's role in future STRS initiatives are unclear. As
we previously mentioned, a goal of the TACT pilot was for FMCSA to
learn about the operation of high-visibility enforcement programs from
NHTSA, and to support this goal, FMCSA detailed a liaison to NHTSA
following congressional direction. FMCSA, however, missed valuable
opportunities for learning because of the time it took to fill the
position, since the liaison came aboard late in the TACT program and
returned to FMCSA before NHTSA conducted its annual Click It or Ticket
enforcement campaign.[Footnote 20] After discussing our findings with
FMCSA officials, they clarified that other FMCSA staff participated in
TACT and knowledge transfer was not limited to the liaison.
Furthermore, NHTSA's participation in future STRS activities is still
evolving. As we previously mentioned, SAFETEA-LU authorized $3 million
to NHTSA and $1 million annually to FMCSA for administering education
and outreach activities associated with commercial-vehicle safety for
the 4-year period from 2006 through 2009. However, the Conference
Report accompanying the DOT appropriations act for fiscal year 2006
indicates that the conferees did not fund the amounts authorized.
Instead, they funded $4 million to FMCSA alone for these purposes.
Given its limited experiences with programs designed to modify driver
behavior, however, FMCSA's plans call for continuing cooperation with
NHTSA in future aggressive driving programs. For example, staff in
FMCSA's Washington Divisional Office told us that their agency lacks
NHTSA's experience with initiatives that change driver behavior and
does not have staff with a background in the area, especially at the
division office level. This is important because TACT's evaluation
report states that having an experienced evaluation team that can
develop and implement a comprehensive evaluation design was critical to
the success of the project. As we previously mentioned, NHTSA has
experience in operating successful campaigns to increase safe behavior
by motorists. Additionally, FMCSA has only a small number of staff
dedicated to its education and outreach programs. NHTSA staff with whom
we spoke initially stated that the agency's involvement will end with
the issuance of the TACT program evaluation report. Currently, however,
NHTSA staff said they will provide FMCSA with general assistance, and
FMCSA has formed a transition team to help ensure that the necessary
expertise will be available to future initiatives. NHTSA officials
added that specific experience with behavioral issues is not required
to replicate the TACT initiative. They said that a program plan, a
media plan, an enforcement plan, and an evaluation plan are required.
FMCSA's Short-term Plans Focus on Initiatives That Do Not Include
Enforcement and That Have Not Been Shown to Be Effective:
FMCSA plans to spend the majority of its 2006 STRS funds on updating
the STRS Web site and producing outreach materials. These funds will be
spent on initiatives that have limited potential for reducing
fatalities and provide limited opportunities for evaluation,
representing a return to an earlier era of STRS. FMCSA will spend
$200,000 in updating its Web site, $100,000 on education and outreach
materials promoting sharing the road, and $50,000 on printing. FMCSA
plans to update its Web site with information on preventing aggressive
driving, which will include Spanish-language content. The Web site also
will include a user survey to gauge satisfaction and will be able to
ask up to five questions about a user's knowledge of STRS initiatives.
Currently, FMCSA can only collect information on the number of visits
to the Web site. In addition, FMCSA plans to distribute education and
outreach materials promoting sharing the road. These initiatives were
not financially supported during fiscal years 2004 and 2005, when NHTSA
had responsibility for STRS. As we previously stated, purely
educational initiatives may conceptually link to FMCSA's goal of
reducing accidents and fatalities, but initiatives such as TACT have a
better potential to improve driver behavior by incorporating local
enforcement efforts with educational outreach. Figure 8 shows four
categories of FMCSA's planned STRS spending in fiscal year 2006. Table
1 lists FMCSA's planned outreach activities within two of these
categories.
Figure 8: Planned STRS Funding for Fiscal Year 2006:
[See PDF for image]
Source: GAO analysis of FMCSA documents.
[End of figure]
Table 1: Planned STRS Outreach Activities for Fiscal Year 2006:
STRS initiatives: Web site enhancements;
Activities: Incorporate information on Washington State TACT into the
Web site, including radio advertisements;
Develop and post press releases, radio scripts, and radio public
service announcements that states can use to raise awareness about
driving safely near trucks;
Implement a customer satisfaction survey on the STRS Web site;
Update the No-Zone Web page.
STRS initiatives: Outreach materials;
Activities: Revise and distribute the brochures entitled the
Professional Driver (for truck drivers) and the Smart Driver (for car
drivers). Place Spanish versions on the STRS Web site;
Develop a script for a public service announcement that states can use
to support TACT communication efforts;
Distribute STRS radio spots to be aired in the 10 states with the
highest truck crash, injury, and fatality rates;
Update and disseminate model training curriculum for teaching students
about sharing the road with commercial motor vehicles;
Update No-Zone campaign materials.
Source: GAO analysis of FMCSA documents.
[End of table]
It is unclear if evaluations of these planned STRS education and
outreach activities will provide meaningful insight into their
effectiveness. FMCSA officials told us that they hired a contractor to
develop evaluations of STRS education and outreach activities, but
plans to evaluate the impact of these activities on fatality and injury
rates have yet to be developed. This contractor will be required to (1)
develop an evaluation study that gathers baseline data and (2) assess
whether the education and outreach materials and activities reached the
intended audience, changed attitudes and behaviors, and helped the
program meet its safety goals. However, in discussing these plans, a
NHTSA official told us that it will be difficult to measure the impact
of educational materials on driver behavior. Furthermore, in our 2003
report, we stated that previous evaluations of STRS activities shed
little light on their short-term, intermediate, and long-term outcomes.
This was due, in part, to FMCSA's heavy reliance on self-reported data
and to FMCSA's not establishing a baseline of driver behavior and
knowledge before the program started. By contrast, TACT's evaluation
visually assessed driver behavior before and after motorists received
education and enforcement. If FMCSA cannot evaluate the effect of these
activities on driver behavior, then the planned activities may
represent a return to the practices that we questioned in our 2003
report.
Conclusions:
The TACT initiative represented a significant departure from previous
STRS initiatives and, by following the high-visibility law enforcement
campaign model, incorporated program elements that experts believe are
most effective in changing driver behavior. Its systematic evaluation
and clear link to agency goals were important steps toward addressing
concerns with STRS that we raised in the past. Furthermore, the
positive results shown by the TACT evaluation and the ongoing problem
of crashes between trucks and passenger vehicles demonstrate that there
is merit in further developing and implementing high-visibility law
enforcement campaigns similar to TACT. FMCSA's plans for future
aggressive driving initiatives are still evolving, but the agency is
currently developing a second pilot in Pennsylvania and has a goal of
rolling out TACT-like initiatives nationwide in 2009. However, FMCSA
has yet to develop a clear strategy describing how it will expand
initiatives similar to TACT from a series of pilots into a nationwide
program or to describe how these programs will be funded.
Furthermore, some of FMCSA's plans for addressing unsafe driving do not
focus on expanding education and enforcement initiatives such as TACT.
Instead, FMCSA has chosen to spend the majority of its fiscal year 2006
STRS funds on initiatives that are purely educational, which safety
experts agree are less effective than when educational outreach is
combined with enforcement. Because FMCSA has not identified a cohesive
strategy to expand TACT and not focused on proven approaches such as
high-visibility law enforcement campaigns, it is unclear how FMCSA's
STRS initiatives will contribute to FMCSA's goal of expanding TACT and
reducing crashes and fatalities.
Finally, there are doubts about FMCSA's ability to ensure the success
of STRS in the future. Although funding responsibility for STRS
returned to FMCSA in 2006 and FMCSA participated in the initial
planning for TACT, NHTSA and the Washington Traffic Safety Commission
significantly supported TACT's implementation and evaluation.
Additionally, FMCSA may have missed valuable opportunities to learn
about the operation of TACT and other similar programs because its
involvement was limited by not being able to use its legislatively
mandated liaison to the fullest extent possible. DOT, through staff
from both NHTSA and FMCSA, demonstrated that it has the ability to
develop state initiatives that change driver behavior around trucks by
successfully implementing TACT. Even so, it is uncertain that DOT will
effectively use these resources in the future, given that the
relationship between NHTSA and FMCSA is still evolving and that FMCSA
has limited staff and experience in administering high-visibility law
enforcement campaigns.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
To ensure that the Share the Road Safely program continues to improve
driver behavior around commercial vehicles, thereby potentially
reducing fatalities, we recommend that the Secretary of Transportation
direct the Administrators of the appropriate agencies to take the
following three steps:
* develop a comprehensive strategy describing how FMCSA will implement
and fund an expansion of TACT-like initiatives from several pilots into
a nationwide program and detail how STRS initiatives contribute to this
goal;
* complete and execute plans to evaluate STRS outreach activities that
are purely educational and discontinue activities with no demonstrable
impact on behavior; and:
* monitor whether FMCSA has sufficient staff and expertise to
successfully develop and administer future high-visibility law
enforcement campaigns, and, if it does not, determine the best methods
for DOT to use its resources and expertise to modify driver behavior
and address the problem of aggressive driving around trucks.
Agency Comments:
We provided DOT with a draft of this report for review and comment. DOT
officials, including FMCSA's Outreach Division Chief and NHTSA's
Behavioral Technology Research Chief, provided oral and written
comments and generally agreed with our recommendations. These FMCSA and
NHTSA officials clarified FMCSA's role in developing initial plans for
an education and enforcement project after we issued our 2003 report
and before Congress provided NHTSA with Share the Road Safely funding.
FMCSA officials also provided additional information on, and
documentation of, a contract to develop an evaluation of FMCSA's
education and outreach programs, including Share the Road Safely
educational initiatives. Finally, the officials provided information on
a team of FMCSA and NHTSA staff established in May 2006 to assist FMCSA
with the expansion of TACT as fiscal responsibility for STRS
transitions from NHTSA to FMCSA. We incorporated this information as
well as technical comments throughout the report as appropriate.
We will send copies of this report to interested congressional
committees, the Secretary of Transportation, and other interested
parties. We will also make copies available to others upon request. In
addition, the report will be available at no charge on GAO's Web site
at [Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].
If you or your staffs have any questions about this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-2834 or siggerudk@gao.gov. Contact points for
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found
on the last page of this report. Key contributors to this report are
listed in appendix IV.
Signed by:
Katherine Siggerud:
Director, Physical Infrastructure:
[End of section]
Appendix I; Scope And Methodology:
To address our first objective and describe what the Department of
Transportation (DOT) has done with the Share the Road Safely (STRS)
program since 2003, we interviewed DOT officials to determine the
changes made in the program since May 2003. Additionally, we
interviewed officials from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration (FMCSA), the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA), and the Washington State Traffic Safety
Commission to report on the implementation and administration of
Washington State's Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks (TACT) pilot
project. To determine whether the design of TACT was reasonable, we
reviewed TACT programming documentation to determine if the design of
the program links program initiatives to goals and if the design
follows the high-visibility law enforcement campaign model for behavior
change. We did not assess the design of other STRS initiatives because
they were not actively funded in fiscal years 2004 and 2005, and
because we reported on these activities in our 2003 report.[Footnote
21]
To address our second objective--to determine what DOT evaluations have
shown and whether the methods were acceptable--we reviewed evaluation
results and analyzed evaluation plans to determine if short-term,
intermediate, and long-term outcomes were measured and if external
factors were considered and controlled for in the assessment. We
reviewed and summarized the results of the Washington State pilot
evaluation and determined if program initiatives linked to agency
goals. In addition, we reviewed the evaluation results to determine if
the evaluation illustrates that the pilot met its criteria for success.
Due to the nature of the TACT program, we could not determine in this
report whether the Share the Road Safely program achieved reductions in
the number of deaths and severity of injuries as requested by the Safe,
Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy
for Users (SAFETEA-LU). Specifically, SAFETEA-LU asked us to update our
prior evaluation of STRS to determine if the program has achieved
reductions in the number and severity of commercial-vehicle crashes,
including reductions in the number of deaths and the severity of
injuries sustained in these crashes. NHTSA officials, however, told us
that the evaluation did not assess these long-term results because the
numbers of injuries and fatalities on the pilot's intervention
corridors were too low to reliably measure any appreciable change.
Therefore, we did not discuss in this report the program's impact on
specific numbers of fatalities and injuries.
To assess DOT's plans for the future of STRS, we interviewed program
administrators at DOT and reviewed relevant budget and planning
documents to determine DOT's direction for STRS. We interviewed the
FMCSA staff member assigned to transfer knowledge about administering
high-visibility law enforcement campaigns from NHTSA to FMCSA to assess
the staff member's ability to accomplish this task. We also compared
the design of future FMCSA initiatives with findings we listed in
previous reports on programs designed to modify driver behavior and
increase a program's effectiveness at reducing crashes, injuries, and
fatalities associated with commercial vehicles.
We conducted our review from October 2005 through July 2006 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
[End of section]
Appendix II: TACT's Implementation of the Click It or Ticket Model:
Category: Overall;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Data collection, before, during, and
immediately after media and enforcement phases;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Overall;
Click it or Ticket criteria: Earned and paid publicity announcing
strict enforcement;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Overall;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Highly visible enforcement each day of
enforcement period;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Planning;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Analysis of crash locations in determining
the need for improvement and for targeting efforts;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Planning;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Areas should be defined so that residents
have a sense of belonging to a community;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Planning;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Enforcement agencies should partner with
local government, public service organizations, the media, and
businesses to generate overwhelming program intensity;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Planning;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Maximum involvement among the state,
county, and local enforcement agencies serving the community;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Planning;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Areas should try to include as large a
percentage of the population as resources permit;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Planning;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Up-front commitment to the program is
needed from top management in each participating enforcement agency;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Planning;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Officer training should be conducted;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Planning;
Click It or Ticket criteria: A high-level enforcement official should
take the lead in carrying the message to the public;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Planning;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Organizers must have the full support of
elected officials;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Planning;
Click It or Ticket criteria: The program should be coordinated with the
courts, since their caseloads will be affected directly by the number
of citations issued;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Publicity;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Enforcement messages repeated over and
over during the publicity period;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Publicity;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Continual use of earned media;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Publicity;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Paid advertisement campaigns;
TACT implementation: check.
Category: Publicity;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Radio advertisements timed to run during
drive times. Television advertisements are run at times when most
viewers are present.[A];
TACT implementation: X.
Category: Enforcement;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Enforcement campaigns usually last 2
weeks. During this period, zero-tolerance enforcement is carried
out.[B];
TACT implementation: X.
Category: Enforcement;
Click It or Ticket criteria: Enforcement visible for entire enforcement
period;
TACT implementation: check.
Source: GAO analysis of DOT documents.
Legend:
check= Followed Click It or Ticket criteria:
X = Did not follow Click It or Ticket criteria:
[A] Advertisements coincided with rush-hour, but television
advertisement was not used.
[B] Warnings were issued to about 28 percent of all violators.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix III: Description of TACT Methodology for Analyzing Video
Footage of Driver Behavior:
To determine whether driver behavior changed, TACT administrators
measured the incidence and rates of unsafe driver behavior in the
vicinity of commercial vehicles. Washington State Police troopers
collected these data by videotaping traffic from unmarked cars.
Troopers drove behind commercial vehicles and provided narration
indicating the type of behavior observed each time an unsafe act was
seen. Unsafe behaviors included making unsafe lane changes, cutting in
front of a truck, following another vehicle too closely, engaging in
unsafe merging, and speeding. Troopers also provided narration
detailing whether they would issue citations for driving violations.
Later, 99 video clips were randomly selected and shown to three sets of
reviewers consisting of police officers, truck drivers, and Washington
Traffic Safety Commission employees. Reviewers filled out a score sheet
for each video clip indicating how dangerous they believed the driver
behavior was and whether it deserved a citation. Evaluators quantified
these responses to generate a score indicating the seriousness of the
unsafe driving act.
[End of section]
Appendix IV: Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Katherine Siggerud, (202) 512-2834, siggerudk@gao.gov:
Staff Acknowledgments:
Catherine Colwell, Assistant Director, and Samer Abbas, Analyst-in-
Charge, managed this assignment and made significant contributions to
all aspects of the work. Daniel Concepcion also made significant
contributions to all aspects of this report. In addition, Joel Grossman
assisted in our assessment of the TACT initiative's design and
evaluation. Tamera Dorland provided writing assistance, Bert Japikse
provided legal support, and Joshua Ormond and Theresa Perkins assisted
with graphics.
(542072):
FOOTNOTES
[1] The Transportation Research Board did not establish a timeline for
how long this increase will last.
[2] U.S. Department of Transportation, Report to Congress on the Large
Truck Crash Causation Study (Washington, D.C.: March 2006).
[3] Other education and outreach activities include a safety belt
program aimed at increasing safety belt use among commercial drivers,
and a new entrant program designed to inform newly registered motor
carriers about motor carrier safety standards and regulations.
[4] GAO, Truck Safety: Share the Road Safely Program Needs Better
Evaluation of Its Initiatives, GAO-03-680 (Washington, D.C.: May 30,
2003).
[5] In this report, "aggressive driving" refers specifically to unsafe
driving acts involving cars and trucks, such as making unsafe lane
changes, following another vehicle too closely, and speeding.
[6] "Click It or Ticket" is a highway safety campaign that uses
increased enforcement along with a media campaign to encourage safety
belt use.
[7] In presenting information on traffic fatalities, we used the most
recent available data contained in NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting
System database. This database contains state-reported data on all
traffic-related fatalities in the United States.
[8] In 2004, we presented information on traffic fatalities using data
contained in NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System database. We
determined that these data were sufficiently reliable for reporting
purposes. See GAO, Highway Safety: Federal and State Efforts to Address
Rural Road Safety Challenges, GAO-04-663 (Washington, D.C.: May 28,
2004).
[9] "Earned media" is positive news coverage that is used to reach a
large audience.
[10] "R.I.D.E." stands for Reduce Injuries through Driver Education.
[11] GAO, Highway Safety: Further Opportunities Exist to Improve Data
on Crashes Involving Commercial Motor Vehicles, GAO-06-102 (Washington,
D.C.: Nov. 18, 2005).
[12] MCSAP is a federal grant program that provides financial
assistance to states to reduce the number and severity of accidents and
hazardous materials incidents involving commercial motor vehicles. The
goal of this program is to reduce commercial-vehicle accidents,
fatalities, and injuries by investing grant monies in appropriate
commercial-vehicle safety programs.
[13] GAO-03-680.
[14] The No-Zone campaign was intended to educate passenger car drivers
to keep out of trucks' blind spots.
[15] NHTSA has conducted research illustrating that manual, 3-point
safety belts reduce the fatality risk of front-seat occupants of
passenger vehicles by 45 percent, relative to an unrestrained occupant.
[16] GAO, Highway Safety: Effectiveness of State .08 Blood Alcohol
Laws, GAO/RCED-99-179 (Washington, D.C.: June 23, 1999); and Motor
Vehicle Safety: Comprehensive State Programs Offer Best Opportunity for
Increasing Use of Safety Belts, GAO/RCED-96-24 (Washington, D.C.: Jan.
3, 1996). See also Lund, Adrian K. and Allan F. Williams, A Review of
the Literature Evaluating the Defensive Driving Course, Accident
Analysis and Prevention 17:6 (1985); Carolyn B. Liban et al., The
Canadian Drinking-Driving Countermeasure Experience, Accident Analysis
and Prevention 19:3 (1987); and James B. Jacobs, Drunk Driving, An
American Dilemma (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1989).
[17] FMCSA has since informed us that Kentucky and Florida have
expressed interest in conducting additional pilots similar to TACT.
FMCSA officials told us that they have contacted these states, but the
officials did not indicate if theses states will conduct TACT-like
initiatives.
[18] FMCSA generally provides MCSAP High Priority grants to support,
enrich, or evaluate state commercial motor vehicle safety programs and
to accomplish the following five objectives: (1) implement, promote,
and maintain national programs to improve commercial motor vehicle
safety, (2) increase compliance with commercial motor vehicle safety
regulations, (3) increase public awareness concerning commercial motor
vehicle safety, (4) provide education on commercial motor vehicle
safety and related issues, and (5) demonstrate new safety-related
technologies.
[19] Consistent with language in the Conference Report accompanying the
DOT appropriations act for fiscal year 2006, FMCSA plans to spend
$500,000 on STRS. Conferees expected that at least $500,000 would be
spent on the Share the Road Safely program.
[20] Initially, a NHTSA official working with this liaison stated that
the liaison did not spend sufficient time at NHTSA and should have
stayed longer to gain more exposure to Click It or Ticket. Later,
however, FMCSA officials told us that the liaison would be attending
NHTSA's planning meetings leading up to the annual Click It or Ticket
campaign.
[21] GAO, Truck Safety: Share the Road Safely Program Needs Better
Evaluation of Its Initiatives, GAO-03-680 (Washington, D.C.: May 30,
2003).
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