The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published a final rule on Thursday that aims to simplify and streamline state reporting requirements for behavioral highway safety programs established under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act.
The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) lauded the final rule, which would take steps to eliminate duplicative reporting requirements and other administrative hurdles for states. It would also open opportunities to receive federal highway safety funding. NHTSA published an interim rule in May 2016.
“These improvements will allow states to focus their full attention on the implementation of lifesaving safety programs,” GHSA stated in a release. “The behavioral highway safety programs are more critical than ever given that 37,461 lives were lost on U.S. roads in 2016, a 5.6 percent increase from 2015 and that that driver error is the critical reason for an estimated 94 percent of crashes.”
GSHA previously joined additional groups in arguing that burdensome reporting requirements and administrative tasks “made it more difficult for states to concentrate on efforts to advance highway safety.”
Section 402 of the FAST Act allows states to receive funding through the Community Highway Safety Grant Program to help improve driver behavior and reduce the number of deaths and injuries in highway crashes. States were also required to conduct surveys and submit data to NHTSA.