Inside This Issue...

AAA has completed its Driver Education Evaluation Guidelines initiative. "Evaluating Driver Education Programs" consists of three products: Management Overview, Comprehensive Guidelines, and a How-To Guide for smaller scale formative evaluations. The items show how to perform a useful, credible evaluation of driver education programs. All three items may be accessed on the AAA Foundation Web site.

According to the newly released “Highway Statistics 2005,” an annual compilation of data reported to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) by all U.S. states and territories, Americans drove nearly three trillion miles on American highways last year. This figure represents an eight percent increase over travel in 2004 and nearly 20 percent more than 1995. The “Highway Statistics” series consists of statistical data on motor fuel, motor vehicles, driver licensing, highway-user taxation, state and local government highway finance, and has been produced each year since 1945. To view “Highway Statistics 2005” or its predecessors, visit FHWA's Web site.

 

The U.S. Department of Transportation has released a study announcing slight changes to the seat-belt and helmet-use figures from 2005 to 2006. According to new data from the National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS), seat belt use in the United States now stands at 81 percent, down slightly from the 2005 use rate of 82 percent. In the West, belt use climbed from 85 percent to 90 percent between 2005 and 2006; and it rose from 82 to 83 percent in the South. However, in the Northeast, belt use fell to 74 percent, down from 78 percent; and in the Midwest it dropped to 77 percent from 79 percent. The Department is working with states to promote seat belt use by providing more than $123 million in 2006 incentive grants to states with primary seat belt laws. For more statistics, see DOT's Web site.

If you haven’t already done so, please respond to the following surveys.

• Pennsylvania – Financial Responsibility Reporting Insurance Cancellation (Ends 12/15/06)
• Ohio – Low & Under Speed Vehicle Inquiry (Ends 12/13/2006)

On Dec. 7, the Senate cleared a two-year reauthorization of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The final bill (HR 5076) would provide $81.5 million in fiscal 2007 and $92.6 million in fiscal 2008 for the NTSB. The House passed the measure by voice vote Dec. 6, after amending it to be more in-line with a bill (S 3679) the Senate passed Sept. 25. In addition to reauthorizing NTSB, the bill would require the Transportation Department’s inspector general to investigate the contractors involved in Boston’s “Big Dig” as well as those who oversaw the major tunnel project, primarily the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) invites comments about its plan to request the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) approval of a new information collection (IC). FMCSA intends to sponsor this new information collection by use of a research contractor to conduct a survey of motor carriers who operate small passenger-carrying commercial motor vehicles (CMVs). The data collected would assist FMCSA with outreach initiatives to these motor carriers of passengers, some of which will be brought within the scope of FMCSA safety regulation by recent statutory changes. This notice is required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. Comments must be submitted on or before Feb. 6, 2007. All comments should reference Docket Number FMCSA-2006-25652. They may be submitted electronically at http://dms.dot.gov.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has denied a petition for rulemaking requesting that the agency amend Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 208, “Occupant Crash Protection,” to include belted test dummies in the rear seats of the dynamic crash tests, and to include a cargo test for occupant protection. For more information on non-legal issues, contact Christopher Wiacek, Office of Crashworthiness Standards, NHTSA, at (202) 366-4801. For legal issues, contact Edward Glancy, Office of the Chief Counsel, NHTSA, at (202) 366-5263.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters has urged state and city transportation officials to respond to a request for proposals to partner with the Department of Transportation to fight traffic congestion in the Nation’s major metropolitan areas. The “Urban Partnership Agreement” would provide qualified states and metropolitan areas, known as “Urban Partners,” with a combination of grants, loans, credit support, regulatory relief and technical assistance to operationally test advanced technologies, such as ramp metering and real-time travel information systems, designed to reduce traffic congestion. In return, the Department’s Urban Partners would be expected to research, develop and showcase strategies believed to be effective on a combined basis in actually reducing traffic congestion in the near term. All applications must be received by April 30, 2007. Secretary Peters expects the results to be announced by Aug. 8, 2007. For more information, see DOT's press release.

 

The second session of the 109th Congress adjourned on Dec. 9, 2006. Many bills were not passed and died at the end of the session. The incoming Democratic majority will have to finish the fiscal year 2007 appropriations bills in January and begin the fiscal year 2008 spending measures when the 110th Congress starts. The 109th Congress only passed two of the 11 annual appropriations bills, which contain funding for Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. AAMVA’s legislative requests, including language extending the Single State Registration System (SSRS) by one year in the Transportation-Treasury and provisions authorizing funds for NMVTIS in the Commerce-Science spending measures, were not enacted into law. Congress passed a continuing resolution (H J Res 102) funding federal agencies that have not yet had their fiscal 2007 appropriations measures enacted to get the lowest of the House-passed, Senate-passed or previous year's funding level. The CR provides funding for the highway, highway safety, and transit programs through Feb. 15, 2007. The resolution funds these programs at the fiscal year 2006 level. Thus, all of the highway and transit investment increases guaranteed by SAFETEA-LU are put on hold.

President Bush has issued an executive order that would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to plan, coordinate and implement a program to improve security for surface transportation. The order, issued on Dec. 5, addresses a topic that has been controverisal in Congress. It does not contain a dollar figure for the initiative or give an estimate for an end date.

Before a federal agency can collect certain information from the public, it must receive approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Under procedures established by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), before seeking OMB approval, federal agencies must solicit public comment on proposed collections of information. In this case, the information collection consists of a load carrying capacity label applied to all motor homes and recreation vehicle (RV) trailers and a load carrying capacity modification label that corrects original load carrying capacity information on all RVs and light vehicles when significant additional weight is added between final vehicle certification and first retail sale. The load carrying capacity modification label is an alternative to current methods of information correction that require the original label to be replaced. A PRA 60-day notice was included with the published notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on Oct. 31, 2005 (70 FR 51707). However, since the original notice was a year old and the PRA burden information has been updated, NHTSA decided to publish a second 60-day notice. This notice is related only to obtaining OMB information collection approval under the PRA and is not part of or a substitute for the final rule amending FMVSS Nos. 110 and 120 by adding load carrying capacity requirements that should be published in the near future. Comments must be identified by docket number NHTSA-2006-26251 and received on or before Feb. 5, 2007. They may be submitted electronically by logging onto the Docket Management System at http://dms.dot.gov. For more information, contact William D. Evans, NHTSA, at (202) 366-2272.