U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

43–655 PDF 2008

IMPROVING ROADWAY SAFETY: 

ASSESSING THE EFFECTIVENESS 

OF THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY AND 

TRAFFIC SAFETY 

ADMINISTRATION’S 

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY 

PROGRAMS 

(110–153) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

HIGHWAYS AND TRANSIT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 16, 2008 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, Vice 

Chair 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

NICK LAMPSON, Texas 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

VACANCY 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

TED POE, Texas 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHWAYS AND TRANSIT 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon, Chairman 

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

BOB FILNER, California 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa, Vice Chair 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

VACANCY 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota 

(Ex Officio) 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

TED POE, Texas 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

(Ex Officio) 

(III) 

(V) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi 

TESTIMONY 

Gillan, Jacqueline S., Vice President, Advocates For Highway & Auto Safety .. 29 

Ingrassia, Jill, Managing Director, Government Relations & Traffic Safety 

Advocacy, AAA ..................................................................................................... 29 

James, Patrick, American Center for Van and Tire Safety ................................. 29 

Letourneau, Hon. Robert, New Hampshire State Senator, Motorcycle Foundation, Concord, New Hampshire ........................................................................... 29 

Mooney, Laura Dean, President, Mothers Against Drunk Driving ..................... 29 

Murphy, Christopher J., Director, California Office of Traffic Safety and 

Chairman Governors Highway Safety Association ............................................ 4 

Ports, Jim, Deputy Administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ................................................................................................................... 4 

Siggerud, Katherine A., Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office .................................................................................. 4 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Altmire, Hon. Jason, of Pennsylvania .................................................................... 45 

Braley, Hon. Bruce L., of Iowa ............................................................................... 46 

Mitchell, Hon. Harry E., of Arizona ....................................................................... 48 

Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota ................................................................. 49 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Gillan, Jacqueline S. ................................................................................................ 53 

Ingrassia, Jill ........................................................................................................... 67 

James, Patrick ......................................................................................................... 73 

Letourneau, Hon. Robert ......................................................................................... 104 

Mooney, Laura Dean ............................................................................................... 116 

Murphy, Christopher J. ........................................................................................... 129 

Ports, Jr., James F. ................................................................................................. 137 

Siggerud, Katherine ................................................................................................ 143 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Mooney, Laura Dean, President, Mothers Against Drunk Driving: 

‘‘Health Effects of Alcohol on Children and Adolescents,’’ Ronald M. Davis, 

M.D., President, American Medical Association ............................................ 123 

Remarks of Mark V. Rosenker, Chairman, National Transportation Safety 

Board, for the ‘‘Support 21’’ press conference ................................................ 127 

vi 


43655.001
vii 


43655.002
viii 


43655.003
ix 


43655.004
x 


43655.005
xi 


43655.006
xii 


43655.007
xiii 


43655.008
xiv 


43655.009
(1) 

HEARING ON IMPROVING ROADWAY SAFETY: 

ASSESSING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF 

NHTSA’S HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY PROGRAMS 

Wednesday, July 16, 2008 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHWAYS AND TRANSIT, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Peter A. 

DeFazio [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. [Presiding] Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The hearing for the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Highways and Transit is coming to 

order. 

I personally want to thank Chairman DeFazio for allowing me to 

chair until he is able to come back to this hearing. 

And thank you, Mr. Duncan, for coming with us. 

Today’s hearing is regarding the effectiveness of the National 

Highway Traffic Safeway Administration’s Highway Safety Programs. These programs improve roadway safety by increasing occupant protection measures, including seat belt usage; reducing 

drunk driving—and hopefully also drugged driving—distracted 

driving, which would include cell phones; and, of course reckless 

driving and speeding. 

Major costs of highway accidents in my district are due to reckless driving in and around highway and railroad grade crossings, 

as well as speed. As freight and commuter railroad services rapidly 

increase, it is imperative that we address grade crossing safety and 

work with our railroads to improve those particular areas at the 

grade crossings, whether through grade separations or improved 

quad gates or any other area that we can effectively put into use. 

Communities must be assisted to implement effective countermeasures—like I said, the quad gates, median barriers approaching 

these crossings, and grade separation projects—which we hope the 

railroads will continue to increase their help in providing those. 

The effectiveness of railroad gates is a major concern in my district 

and allows drivers to maneuver around malfunctioning gates, especially if they are in a hurry or during a rainstorm or they are keeping appointments, being that 160 trains travel through my district 

every day over 54 grade crossings in a heavily populated area. Add 

to that other issues, whether it is drunk driving, reckless speeding, 

2 

any other safety factor, this is going to be a real problem, especially 

since the frequency of train traffic is expected to increase, double 

by 2020. 

There are concerns about the DUI, DWI—whatever you want to 

name it—being used to implement certain things such as immigration checkpoints; concern that the local governments are using Federal and State grants intended for nighttime DUI or DWI, checkpoints to implement these daytime immigration checkpoints. And 

let me tell you, they are using it as an income increase to their 

general budgets. Some of the ones that I know—because I know 

several of them—are the tow truck operators. Because when you 

implement a fee plus a daily impound of $30 a day or $45—depends on who you talk to—for 30 days, that is a hefty amount of 

money. We must ensure that these provisions that allow these 

checkpoints to happen or to reduce the number of safety factors 

that affect our public’s safety. 

I don’t see any statistics from anybody telling us that doing these 

other measures are decreasing the number of accidents or fatalities. The checkpoints at some of our area’s adjoining counties have 

been including Immigration officers. Well, then we should include 

parole officers to be able to ensure that some of these folks that are 

possibly driving while on parole or violation of parole, or whether 

they are drugged, or whether they are otherwise impaired are 

taken off the highways. Those are things that I have sort of looked 

at as I was going through the testimony. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration disperses 

grants to our States and local governments to set up these checkpoints and increase driving safety, not immigration enforcement; 

and that is taking away from the amount of time the funding to 

be able to effectively put these officers somewhere where they can 

be more effective in providing that safety to our public. 

I welcome our witnesses today and look forward to hearing the 

testimony and any recommendations for improving highway safety. 

I have read most of the testimony with great pleasure because 

California, as you well know, is a heavily trafficked State and increasing by every year. We must also work with our Federal counterparts to be able to ensure that we have every tool available to 

decrease fatalities, and I agree, to zero. 

With that, I turn to Mr. Duncan for a statement. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. 

And I thank Chairman DeFazio for calling this hearing to assess 

our traffic safety programs. I would also like to thank all of our 

witnesses for being here. In particular, I would like to thank one 

of my constituents, Patrick James, for traveling from Knoxville, 

Tennessee to testify before us here today. 

Mr. James lost his daughter, Alexis ‘‘Lexie’’ James, in a 15-passenger van accident last July. Since this tragedy, Mr. James has 

worked tirelessly to raise public awareness and to improve the safe 

operation of these vans. He is here today to testify about those efforts. Actually, his work led the Congress to pass at least a preliminary or beginning resolution on this subject just a couple of months 

ago. 

The safety of our Nation’s highways is a major concern for the 

Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. In 2006, 42,642 peoVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:26 Jun 25, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\43655 JASON
3 

ple lost their lives in motor vehicle crashes. That translates to an 

average of 117 people per day, or 1 person every 12 minutes. In 

fact, I remember a couple months after 9/11 I was asked to be on 

the Oprah Winfrey Show because they had an inspector general of 

the Department of Transportation at that time that said our planes 

were becoming so dangerous we were going to start averaging a 

crash a week soon, and that woman was totally wrong; and they 

had me on there to talk about how safe the aviation system was, 

and I said at that time, unfortunately, we have more people killed 

in three or three and a half months on our Nation’s highways than 

killed in all U.S. aviation accidents combined since the Wright 

Brothers’ flight in 1903. The disparity is almost unbelievable. 

Behind the numbers, though, of these 42,000 plus people being 

killed, behind those numbers are devastated families and individuals. In addition to that, traffic crashes cost the Nation an estimated $230 billion annual. While there has been some progress in 

reducing these numbers—the 2006 number decreased 2 percent 

from 2005—traffic fatalities and injuries remain a major public 

health problem in this Country. In fact, I think they are the leading cause of death for people from the age of 2 to the age of 34, 

if I remember correctly. 

As we move forward on reauthorizing the highway safety programs, we will face the challenge of reducing or trying to reduce 

these numbers further. This challenge is, in addition, complicated 

by changes in the causes of fatal accidents, as well changes in the 

demographics of the motoring public. For example, we must be prepared for the graying of America. As our population grows in size, 

the average age of our citizens is also increasing. In 50 years, the 

percentage of the population over 65 will almost double, from about 

12 percent now to about 21 percent. This is something we are going 

to have to take into consideration. 

We need to have programs in place that will help meet the challenges by keeping older drivers at the wheel safely. Really, they are 

the among the safest drivers in this Country today, but they also 

have a higher percentage of fatalities because, when they are involved in a serious accident, there is more likely to be a death involved. 

Our witnesses will address the issues facing the highway safety 

programs. I look forward to hearing their testimony and I yield 

back the balance of my time. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you so very much, Mr. Duncan. 

With that, we will proceed with the testimony of our witnesses, 

which include Mr. Jim Ports, Deputy Administrator of the National 

Highway Safety Traffic Administration. Welcome, sir. 

Ms. Katherine Siggerud, Director of Physical Infrastructure 

Issues at the Government Accountability Office. Welcome, ma’am. 

And a very hearty welcome to one of my State’s great people, 

who is Christopher Murphy, Director of the California Office of 

Traffic Safety and Chairman of the Governors Highway Association. 

Thank you all for being here, and we will proceed with Mr. Ports. 

You may begin, sir. 

4 

TESTIMONY OF JIM PORTS, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION; 

KATHERINE A. SIGGERUD, DIRECTOR, PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY 

OFFICE; AND CHRISTOPHER J. MURPHY, DIRECTOR, CALIFORNIA OFFICE OF TRAFFIC SAFETY AND CHAIRMAN GOVERNORS HIGHWAY SAFETY ASSOCIATION 

Mr. PORTS. Thank you, Madam Chairman, Ranking Member Duncan and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting 

me here today to discuss motor vehicle safety issues. I want to express my appreciation for this Committee’s support for highway 

safety programs. Your leadership and support have made significant contributions to advancing the cause of highway safety and 

improving the quality of life in communities across the Nation. Transportation safety is a top priority for President Bush and Secretary Peters. Our mission at NHTSA is very straight forward: 

to save lives and prevent injuries. Motor vehicle crashes continue 

to be the leading cause of death for Americans in every age 2 

through 34. In 2006, more than 42,600 people lost their lives on 

U.S. roadways, and 2.6 million were injured in vehicle crashes. As Representative Duncan mentioned earlier, the associated financial costs are staggering, at $230 billion each year. What makes 

that situation even more distressing and frustrating is that many 

of these deaths were preventable. Over 90 percent of crashes are 

caused by human factors, such as speeding and alcohol impairment. We must aggressively continue to work to change driving behaviors. Advances in new technology, such as electronic stability 

control, will also play a major important role in reducing traffic fatalities in the future. 

One of the areas where new advances in technology linked to behavior programs shows strong promise is in reducing impaired 

driving crashes. In 2006, alcohol-impaired driving crashes accounted for more than 13,400 deaths, or 32 percent of all traffic fatalities. Impaired drivers also take a terrible toll on our most precious resource, our children. In 2006, 598 children under the age 

of 18 were killed in crashes involving an alcohol-impaired driver. 

Lack of seat belt use also continues to be a major factor in motor 

vehicle crashes. Research has shown that seat belt use is the most 

effective traffic safety countermeasure available to prevent fatalities and injuries. Seat belts saved an estimated 75,000 lives between 2002 and 2006. Higher belt use rates translate directly into 

saved lives. 

One of the most challenging areas we face today is motorcycle 

safety. The number of fatalities continues to rise. In 2006, 4810 

motorcyclists were killed, an increase of 5 percent over the 2005 

number, and a 127 percent increase since 1997. NHTSA supports 

comprehensive efforts to reduce motorcycle-related crashes and injuries, including the use of motorcycle helmets. 

Just this morning, as a matter of fact, Secretary Peters held an 

event at the Department of Transportation in recognition of Ride 

to Work Day, highlighting motorcycle safety. In November 2007, 

Secretary Peters announced a new departmental action plan to reduce motorcycle fatalities. The plan includes a comprehensive 

range of initiatives, including rider education, tougher standards 

5 

for helmet certification labeling, law enforcement training, and 

road design that can consider motorcycle handling dynamics. 

The growing number of older drivers also requires attention. As 

the Ranking Member just mentioned, in the United States we are 

facing a surge in the population of those over the age of 65. In 

2006, there were 30.1 million older licensed drivers, which was an 

18 percent increase from 1996. NHTSA’s policy is to promote safe 

mobility for older riders, to help seniors drive as long as they can 

do it safely, and to encourage the development of transportation alternatives for those who can no longer drive. 

NHTSA developed an older driver strategic plan to better target 

agency programs and resources to address this at-risk growing population. Key areas of focus include skills screening and assessments, licensing, counseling by medical providers, public information and program promotion and other activities. 

At the other end of the driving spectrum, NHTSA also has a 

strategic approach to addressing teen drivers. In 2006, young drivers between 15 and 20 years old accounted for 6.4 percent of the 

total number of drivers, but accounted for nearly 13 percent of 

drivers involved in fatal crashes. 

Through these behavioral and technology efforts, NHTSA seeks 

to reduce the total motor vehicle crashes in this Country. Many of 

these crashes and fatalities are preventable, and through greater 

implementation of proven safety countermeasures, we believe that 

thousands of additional lives could be saved each year. 

Madam Chairwoman, thank you for your consideration and this 

Subcommittee’s ongoing efforts to improve highway safety, and I 

would be pleased to answer any questions at the appropriate time. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, sir, for your testimony, Mr. Ports. 

We will move on to Ms. Katherine Siggerud. 

Ms. SIGGERUD. Madam Chair, Ranking Member Duncan, thank 

you for inviting GAO to this important hearing on NHTSA’s traffic 

safety programs. 

While there is progress to report over the past decade, as the 

traffic fatality rate has decreased by about 14 percent, safety remains one of the key challenges facing DOT and the States. It is 

unfortunate that the number of traffic fatalities has remained at 

about 43,000 annually. 

We have recently published four reports on key NHTSA programs and my statement today is based on that work. Today I will 

cover, first, NHTSA’s activities related to programs authorized in 

SAFETEA-LU; second, these programs’ effectiveness in addressing 

traffic safety issues; third, observations from our work on safety for 

older drivers; and, finally, issues to consider in reauthorizing the 

programs next year. 

NHTSA has made substantial progress in implementing traffic 

safety grant programs and high-visibility programs. NHTSA provided guidance and developed programs quickly to implement 

SAFETEA-LU. In fiscal years 2006 and 2007, NHTSA awarded 

over $1 billion through its main formula grant and its incentive 

grants meant to induce States to adopt Federal priorities such as 

improved seat belt use. With regard to high-visibility campaigns, 

by these I mean the Click It or Ticket and the impaired driving 

program, known as Drunk Driving Over the Limit, Under Arrest. 

6 

NHTSA has both developed and distributed advertisements and coordinated advertisement and enforcement activities with all States. 

In our April report, we raised concerns and recommendations 

about NHTSA’s evaluation of these campaigns. NHTSA is considering changes as a result. 

With regard to oversight, we recommended in 2003, and 

SAFETEA-LU subsequently required, that NHTSA improve the 

consistency of its oversight of grants to States. NHTSA has done 

so by conducting management reviews every three years and working with the State partners to develop a useful review protocol. In 

our report issued Monday, we recommend several improvements, 

including that NHTSA consider the results of these reviews in 

identifying opportunities for technical assistance and training. 

With regard to these programs’ effectiveness, it is generally too 

early to know whether programs established or changed since 

SAFETEA-LU are having an effect on crashes and fatalities. States 

told us that the programs are helping to improve traffic safety by 

addressing important issues such as unbelted and alcohol-impaired 

driving. State officials further said that incentives grants are good 

complements to the core safety program. 

But the incentive grants appear to have induced only moderate 

changes in State programs during this authorization. Overall, nine 

States have passed primary safety belt laws that can reasonably be 

ascribed to SAFETEA-LU incentives. Thirteen States have passed 

laws necessary to receive the Child Safety Seat grants, and no 

States have passed laws to meet certain criteria established for impaired driving grants. 

Each safety incentive grant has a separation application process, 

which is an administrative burden, especially for States with small 

safety offices. Some States would also prefer more flexibility in 

using the grants. This could become a key issue in the future as 

emerging issues, such as older driver safety, become more critical 

in States. We also noted that NHTSA does not have sufficient performance measures to assess the grant programs’ effectiveness, but 

has begun the process of developing these measures. 

We issued a report last year looking at safety for older drivers, 

including licensing procedures. More than half of the States use licensing requirements for older drivers that are more stringent than 

for younger drivers, but not enough is known about whether these 

and other practices are actually effective in identifying problems in 

improving safety. We noted as a best practice States’ use of coordinating groups to develop cross-agency plans for managing older 

driver safety. NHTSA and the States are sponsoring initiatives to 

develop such plans and assist States in implementing more comprehensive driver fitness assessments. 

In conclusion, this Committee and the Congress have a number 

of issues and opportunities to consider in the next authorization. I 

have already mentioned challenges associated with the incentive 

grants, including whether they, as designed, will be able to induce 

the changes the State legislation and the Congress would like to 

see. In addition, with the exception of the data improvement 

grants, these programs also generally do not relate State safety 

performance to the receipt or size of grants, and Congress would 

need to consider whether to tie funding more closely to performVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:26 Jun 25, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\43655 JASON
7 

ance. Congress will also hear suggestions to allow for more flexibility in using grant funds to address current and emerging safety 

issues. In our view, increased flexibility should be combined with 

quality crash data and accountability mechanisms to ensure that 

Federal dollars are going to the highest priority safety problems. 

Furthermore, the plateau of the number of annual traffic fatalities nationwide and changes in causes of fatalities may indicate 

that the current structure in traffic safety programs needs some 

change. For example, from 1997 through 2006, motorcycle fatalities 

increased by 127 percent, while child passenger fatalities decreased 

by 31 percent. Finally, speed remains an important factor and is 

not currently targeted by any of the programs I have discussed 

today. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes—sorry, Madam Chair, this concludes my statement, and I will answer any questions you may 

have. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, ma’am. 

Next we will have Mr. Christopher Murphy give us his testimony. Thank you for being here, sir. 

Mr. MURPHY. Madam Chair Napolitano and Ranking Member 

Duncan and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for allowing 

GHSA to be here today to talk about ways to improve highway 

safety. 

GHSA members administer one formula grant, seven incentive 

grant programs, and two penalty transfer programs. All of these 

programs have different requirements and different deadlines. 

These programs have been authorized in a piecemeal basis over the 

last several reauthorizations. 

GHSA recommends that a national strategic highway safety plan 

be developed. We also recommend that the national plan set a goal 

of towards zero fatalities. Instead of supporting a single highway 

safety grant program with performance tiers, States would like a 

single application with a single deadline and all the grant funds allocated October 1st. Congress should streamline the application 

process to allow more rationality in the State planning process. 

This change would mean that States would spend less time submitting grant applications and more time on program development 

and implementation. 

We also support more performance-based grant programs. GHSA 

is currently working with NHTSA to develop core performance 

measures that all States will begin using in 2010. Additionally, 

GHSA has also endorsed the idea of greater flexibility between behavioral highway safety grant programs. Currently, there is no 

flexibility. States want to be able to shift a percentage of their incentive funding to the emphasis areas where they have the greatest need. 

GHSA supports making changes to the various incentive grant 

programs. We support expanding the purpose and scope of the 2010 

motorcycle safety program and combining the three occupant protection programs into a more performance-based one. We also 

strongly support the idea that the eligible activities under the 410 

2010 and the occupant protection program be expanded. 

GHSA is supporting a new program to combat excessive speed. 

The program would provide incentives to States that implement 

8 

speed enforcement and automated speed enforcement, speed paid 

media and educational campaigns or speed management workshops. GHSA also recommends that Congress fund a national campaign to re-educate the public about the dangerous consequences of 

speeding, a biennial national speed monitoring data collection 

study to determine how fast the traveling public is actually going, 

and research into emerging technologies for measuring and controlling speed. 

We also very strongly support substantially increased funding for 

data improvements. The current $34.5 million program is just not 

adequate. Performance-based programming is heavily dependent 

upon good data, so it is imperative that improvements be made in 

State data systems. We also support increased funding for traffic 

safety research. States should have the ability at the same time to 

pool their funds to fund research that would supplement the Federal research. The NHTSA behavioral research program and 

FHWA safety research program should also be increased. 

Training is also a big issue for GHSA. There is concern that 

many directors of highway safety are retiring and there is not adequate training for new directors, nor is there training to attract 

young professionals into the field. Training is a problem government-wide, but it is particularly acute in highway safety. GHSA 

supports AASHTO’s recommendation for the development of a 

AASHTO-GHSA Highway Safety Center of Excellence, funded at 

about $3 million annually. We also support increased funding so 

that NHTSA can enhance its training capabilities. 

GHSA strongly supports the continuation of and improvement of 

the strategic highway safety plan. As an association, we continue 

to oppose new sanctions. States are already sanctioned for failure 

to enact seven different highway safety laws. They are making 

progress on high BAC, booster seat, and graduated licensing laws. 

We would, however, vigorously oppose any effort to roll back the 

national minimum drinking age sanction. 

In summary, Madam Chair, the Association is not recommending 

major changes to the current grant programs. GHSA has recommended that the current grant planning and application process 

be streamlined. The program should be more performance based 

with greater flexibility between behavioral programs, and that 

some programmatic changes should be made to the incentives. 

Thank you. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Murphy. 

The information that you have given us is appreciated. Of some interest was your statement in regard to reducing speed also saves 

energy, lowering gas mileage to reduce the 33 percent highway 

speeds, and the rule of thumb is this should be out to the consumers right now since gas is so expensive, that for each 5 miles 

per hour they drive above 60 is like paying an additional 20 cents 

per gallon for gas. Is that including today’s gas prices? 

Mr. MURPHY. Those are the latest figures that we have. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Okay. That is significant. In areas of different 

questions that I had—and I have a lot of them, so I will defer to 

some of the members in a minute—I still have some issues with 

the COPS policing grant in California, whether they are utilizing— 

and I don’t know whether the States are the same—some of their 

9 

funding to be able to conduct daytime immigration checkpoints, but 

checkpoints in general. And what correlation have they found because most people are driving to or from work, or they are delivering or they are going to appointments, versus nighttime, after 

work, go have a couple of drinks and then getting on the road, driving that might affect the actual public safety. 

Whether or not there is consideration in your governor’s focus of 

being able to identify what other safety issues can come up at 

checkpoints that might then be more geared towards whether it is 

teen driving, driving under the influence, or even during the daytime, during school hours, in schools, when kids are taking off and 

not going to school, being truant, and already possibly being under 

drug influence. I was suggesting that we change the Mothers 

Against Drunk Drivers to Mothers Against Drunk and—well, Impaired Drivers, which would include anything else, because those 

are serious problems our communities are facing today. 

Mr. MURPHY. Madam Chair, in California, our policy, through 

my office, is that we only fund checkpoints that start after 6:00 in 

the evening, so I can’t really respond to checkpoints that are done 

during the day, because they are not being done with federal funding. So we know that checkpoints are the most effective countermeasure out there for DUI. In California they can only be conducted in areas on streets that have a high incidence of DUI arrests and/or alcohol-involved crashes. So our checkpoints generally 

run anywhere from 6:00 to 2:00 in the morning or 8:00 to 2:00 in 

the morning. I am not really sure about daytime checkpoints. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Okay. And you are recommending Congress 

implement a speed management program to provide incentives to 

States to address speeding. Is there a technology that you know 

of—I know one gentleman in the audience is from the auto industry—that would equip a car with a sensor to be able to detect alcohol impairment, something that the industry would help address to 

be able to then negate an impaired driver from getting behind the 

wheel? 

Mr. MURPHY. Madam Chair, I know a little bit about that, but 

I really should defer to my colleagues at NHTSA, who could probably better answer that question. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Okay. 

There are other questions, but I think what I will do is I will 

yield to my Ranking Member, and I will continue the questions. 

There are other members here. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you, Madam Chairwoman, but I want 

to go first on our side to Mr. Poe. 

Mr. POE. I want to thank the Ranking Member for yielding. I 

have basically two questions for Mr. Ports. 

Talk about buses that transport kids. Not the old-fashioned yellow school buses, but these high-dollar big buses that we think are 

safer than school buses when kids are transported from, let’s say, 

a town to another town for an athletic event. We had two teenage 

girls in a State playoff killed in a bus that turned over, and these 

massive windows shattered and they were both killed. Correct me 

if I am wrong, these big buses are really more dangerous in a crash 

that old-fashioned school buses. What is being done, if anything, to 

10 

rethink the way we build these massive buses, especially those that 

transport kids from event to event? 

Mr. PORTS. Thank you very much for that question, Mr. Representative. What NHTSA has done is we have been very aggressive in trying to look at that situation as it involves motorcoach 

safety. One of the things we recently did was, in December, for the 

first time in NHTSA history, we crashed a motorcoach. We wanted 

to find out what the pulse of that vehicle was so that we could then 

devise a sled device so we could further research how we can make 

motorcoaches safer. 

We equipped that motorcoach with several dummies to look at 

how they would react to seat belts, how the seats would react, different seats in a motorcoach would react, and we are taking that 

information now and trying to come up with some policies. 

To address fully your question about the windows, we are also 

looking at the glazing issue of the motorcoaches. 

So we are starting to address those and we hope to have something completed by December. 

Mr. POE. Is the motorcoach industry actively trying to come up 

with some solutions? Are they an obstacle, are they cooperating, or 

what, in your opinion? 

Mr. PORTS. Well, they were actually in attendance at the crash, 

so they are very interested in working with us on some safety 

measures. 

Mr. POE. Another question has to deal with age of drivers. If you 

could give me some statistics. Under 25-year-old drivers account for 

approximately what percentage of the fatalities in the United 

States? Just approximately. 

Mr. PORTS. I believe it is about 15 percent right now, but let me 

get back to you on that question. 

Mr. POE. Well, is it true that younger drivers, percentage wise, 

commit more fatalities as the driver than people that are older? I 

don’t want to talk about senior citizens. I think the Ranking Member will get to the senior citizens in a minute. But is that true or 

not? 

Mr. PORTS. It is. As a matter of fact, the percentages of teen drivers, as I mentioned, they are about 6.4 percent of the total driving 

population, but represent about 13 percent of the fatalities. So they 

are definitely over-represented in the fatality and crash injury of 

all drivers. 

Mr. POE. Talk about a little heresy here. What if we raised the 

driving license age? Would that have any significant effect on loss 

of teenagers that are getting killed? 

Mr. PORTS. To be honest with you, I am not sure of that answer. 

I could have some of our folks at NHTSA look into that for you. 

Mr. POE. I would like to know if that isn’t a fact. It is true, is 

it not, though, that teenage drivers account for a disproportionate 

number of fatalities that are alcohol-related? Is that correct? 

Mr. PORTS. That is correct. As a matter of fact, they shouldn’t be 

drinking to begin with. 

Mr. POE. That is right. Not until they are 21. 

Mr. PORTS. They are not 21, right. 

Mr. POE. All right, that is all my questions. 

I yield back the remainder of my time. Thank you. 

11 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Arcuri. 

Mr. ARCURI. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Thank you for being here. I have a couple of questions. The difference in the number of deaths as it relates to the speed limit, do 

any of you know the difference in terms of the numbers when the 

speed limit was 55 miles an hour and what the percentage are 

when it is 65 or 70 miles an hour, as it increases? 

Ms. SIGGERUD. Mr. Arcuri, I have to say the GAO actually did 

a study on that way back in 1977, and there has been some updated information. We have a new request from Senator Warner to 

look specifically at this issue of the speed limit as it relates to energy efficiency and safety. I would certainly be glad to provide some 

information to you for the record on that. 

Mr. ARCURI. Great. I appreciate that. Thank you. 

Second question is we see a lot on the road of the doubling of 

fines in work zones. Has that had any success in terms of more 

compliance? Are people complying more with the speed limits? How 

has that affected the number of fatalities in work zones? 

Mr. PORTS. To be effective, any time you have an increase in the 

fines, you also have to have enforcement. That is a critical factor. 

We do know that proper enforcement in any zone, whether it be a 

speed zone, a school zone, or any other roadway, has a significant 

impact on the behavior of those individuals. 

Mr. ARCURI. I believe that there have been some significant 

grants that have been given out to law enforcement to enforce 

speed limits within the work zones in the past few years. 

Mr. PORTS. That is correct, sir. That is Federal Highways that 

provides those grants, that is not NHTSA. But, again, we would be 

more than happy to get with Federal Highways and get that information for you with work zone safety. 

Mr. ARCURI. Great. I appreciate that. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Duncan? 

Mr. DUNCAN. Go ahead to other members, I will go last. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Okay, Mr. Sires. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you very much 

for the panel being here. 

You know, despite great efforts in the State of New Jersey, this 

year we had 280 deaths on the roads, in 2008. In my district alone 

we had 70. I really believe it is vital that we come up with whatever we can to reduce the fatalities. Some of our current problems 

are educational, while others, such as mandatory seat belts, are all 

mandatory. 

In your review of traffic programs, how much more effective is 

it in curbing the behavior of drivers when you fine the drivers as 

compared to educational programs for the drivers? 

Ms. SIGGERUD. There has been extensive research on this very 

concept of is an educational campaign sufficient to change behavior, or does taking enforcement action through fines or other 

means, through core process, is that important to reinforcing the 

behavior change, and it is very clear that combining enforcement 

activities with an educational campaign is the most effective way 

to get change in behavior by drivers both at the time of the camVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:26 Jun 25, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\43655 JASON
12 

paign and that lasts over time. The educational component by itself 

has generally only a relatively small effect. 

Mr. SIRES. So when they are fined and they are required to go 

through an educational process, you find that that is the most effective, or just—— 

Ms. SIGGERUD. Well, the research shows this really in two ways. 

One is, of course, those that have gone through this enforcement 

process may change their behavior. But, in general, the visibility 

of enforcement together with education has the potential to change 

many other drivers’ behavior as well. 

Mr. SIRES. Another one of my pet peeves is this driving with the 

cell phone in your ear. I know in New Jersey we banned that, but 

you get on the Jersey Turnpike and everybody has it without the 

piece in their ear. How effective are these laws when it comes to 

something like cell phones in your studies? Are they a deterrent or 

do we have to go back to a fine and education? I am just trying 

to get a way of how we enforce this, because most people just seem 

to ignore it. And I am not an abuser; I have my little earpiece. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. PORTS. Again, thank you for that question. What we have 

found is that licensed sanctions and fines are probably the best deterrent, as mentioned, but, also, again, it goes back to enforcement. 

If there is a strong enforcement component, then you would see 

changes in behavior. As a matter of fact, you will be very happy— 

I am sue you are very happy to know that southern New Jersey 

just joined the Smooth Operator program to combat aggressive 

driving this year as a regional program, so you are starting to 

see—— 

Mr. SIRES. This is the southern part of New Jersey? 

Mr. PORTS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SIRES. How do you divide south and north? 

Mr. PORTS. That is up to them. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. PORTS. They do that, not us. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you very much. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

Mr. Brown. 

Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to the witnesses. I apologize for being a little bit late, but let me ask a question to Mr. Ports, if I could. And any of you all might join in if you 

have something to add to it. 

What role does increasing congestion play in the number of accidents and related deaths? Are more congested cities or highways 

more dangerous from a statistical point of view than the ones that 

aren’t? 

Mr. PORTS. Thank you very much for that question. What we 

have found through our research—and we are rolling out a new 

program for rural safety as we speak—is that most of the fatalities 

occur on rural roads, and usually a divided highway with traffic 

coming in each direction. Some of that is because of the way the 

roads are structured; you have a lot of hills, turns, curves, trees, 

utility poles very close to the roadways, and, of course, cars are 

close to each other as they are passing. And then, of course, you 

13 

have aggressive drivers who change lanes when they should or 

should not, at times. 

So what we have found is that, as it gets congested, people obviously slow down and you do have a lot of crashes, but there are 

not as many fatalities. 

Mr. BROWN. Okay, let me ask you another question. Since 2000, 

injuries in motor vehicle crashes have dropped by about 500,000 

per year; yet, fatalities have stayed level, at between 40,000 and 

45,000 a year. How would you relate to that statistic? 

Mr. PORTS. Thank you very much. That is one of the more frustrating things to us, is the way the numbers are used. But if you 

look at how we measure the statistic, what we do is we take 100 

million vehicle miles traveled and we look at the fatality rate. The 

fatality rate has been decreasing significantly. And, of course, we 

have dedicated employees throughout NHTSA working on that 

every day; their mission is to save lives and reduce injuries every 

day. 

Although the numbers are staying the same, flat, as you had 

mentioned, the overall number, there are a significant amount of 

motorists out there registered and driving, as well as more vehicle 

miles being traveled, so statistically we are reducing that rate. But, 

more importantly, as I mentioned, our mission is to reduce fatalities and injuries, and we don’t look at just the statistics or just the 

numbers; we look at each and every one of these as a person and 

a family member and a community member. 

Mr. BROWN. One final question. How does your administration 

work with research and innovative technology administration and 

its intelligent transportation system joint program office to integrate safety priorities into design and development of intelligent 

transportation systems? 

Mr. PORTS. We work very extensively with them and we also 

have just rolled out the new NCAP, our new vehicle program, 

which talks about technology. What we have found is that most of 

the cars throughout the United States are getting four and five 

stars, as you are probably aware, so we have rolled back that a little bit and looked at technology and how we can introduce technology side impacts and ESC, electronic stability control, and all 

these future technologies so that we can give the consumer a better 

idea of how technology can benefit them and the safety of their 

families. 

Mr. BROWN. I know there are automobiles now that give you a 

little alarm if you back up and you get too close, and I was just 

wondering if that technology is being further advanced to give 

early warnings for maybe crossing the center line or maybe some 

other safety factors that might be included. 

Mr. PORTS. That is an excellent question, and, yes, we are very 

interested in that technology. We are working with the auto manufacturers on technology for lane departure, so if you go on either 

side of the lane, it will warn you before you leave the road, because 

that is what we are trying to prevent. There are also technologies 

out there for automatic braking that we are working with with 

large trucks, that will determine if they are too close to a vehicle 

or if they are drowsy, for example, and not paying attention, it will 

automatically stop that vehicle. We are also looking at further techVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:26 Jun 25, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\43655 JASON
14 

nologies with backing up and what we call vehicle-to-vehicle communication to determine if a vehicle is in your blind spot. 

So all these technologies, we are very excited about technology at 

NHTSA and how it can help prevent injuries and save lives. 

Mr. BROWN. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Mr. Brown. 

Mr. Duncan. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Last year, I wrote something in a newsletter I sent to my constituents, and I said this: drunk driving standards were toughened 

in most after the Congress passed laws to withhold some Federal 

money if alcohol levels were not lowered. Now, with our aging population, some want to make it tougher for senior citizens to renew 

driver’s licenses because there is a myth about them being very unsafe drivers. 

However, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 

recently found that drivers 75 and older are the safest drivers of 

all. The next safest are those 65 to 74. And this is based on the 

crash rate per 10,000 drivers. In this study, the lower percentage 

was better, and the figure for those 75 and over was 2.5 percent, 

while the rate for those 16 to 20 was 13.3 percent. 

Now, that was from a chart that was published in The Washington Post. That is a dramatic difference. Now, that applies just 

to accidents. 

We have a chart that is on the screen now that shows something 

a little bit similar, except this pertains only to fatal crashes. It 

shows, once again, those over 65 have the lowest percentages of 

fatal crashes. Now, it does show a dramatic difference between 

male and female drivers. I read, a couple years ago, that there is 

only one thing that 100 percent of the people in this Country agree 

on, and that is that everybody thinks they are a good driver. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. DUNCAN. Now, that may be true, but what these two different studies show is, number one, that the older drivers are safer. 

Now, I do understand there is some statistic that I am a little bit 

confused about, that when older people who are riding as passengers are involved in these bad wrecks, they are more likely to 

be killed than the younger people; and I guess that is true. But 

they are safer drivers. 

I will ask you, Mr. Ports, do you have any kind of program aimed 

at pointing out to male drivers how bad they are in comparison to 

women drivers? But more seriously, are you aiming anything particularly at the high schools? Because there is a private foundation 

that contacted me a few months ago, and they sent this young man 

who was a star football player in California who was seriously 

brain damaged in a bad wreck because of alcohol, and they send 

him around all over the Country; he has been on the Today Show. 

I don’t remember his name right at the moment, but they offered 

to do that in a high school in my district and we went and we did 

that. I was there and introduced the program and so forth. It had 

a real effect on those young people. 

Now, that was being done privately. What are you all doing? 

Mr. PORTS. I really appreciate that question. 

15 

By the way, Madam Chairwoman totally agrees with you, the difference between male and female drivers. I saw her head shaking 

vigorously and her smile was from ear to ear. 

We are trying to address that, as a matter of fact. Many of our 

programs now, the Click It or Ticket, the Over the Limit, Under 

Arrest campaigns—which, by the way, thank you very much for the 

$29 million per year to do those campaigns—we are starting to target young people, for one, but males in particular. We are trying 

to do that for the very reasons you said. We recognize that about 

64 percent of the teens who die in fatalities die because they are 

not wearing their seat belt, and that is a statistic that we need to 

change. 

As a matter of fact, in our Click It or Ticket program that I just 

did a whirlwind tour on the west side of the Country, we brought 

out individuals like you just mentioned, two males involved in a 

crash going about 60 miles an hour; one of them hit a wall. He was 

almost totally decapitated and his passenger was wearing a seat 

belt and walked away from the crash. 

We need to educate teens, especially males, who think they are 

invincible. I am sure you had teenagers too; you understand how 

difficult it is to get them to clean their room, let alone wear a seat 

belt in a vehicle. It is a very difficult proposition to get them to understand they are not invincible. We are doing our best to do that 

through creative campaigns. We had someone on Click It or Ticket. 

You would notice it looked like aliens were coming down. We are 

trying to focus on ways that they might relate. 

We are also doing some peer-to-peer reviews. We are working 

with school-aged children, especially high school age, through some 

of the programs and the NOYS organization to effectively address 

the teen situation, but we do know this: it is speed, it is not wearing a seat belt, and it is, as you mentioned, drinking and driving. 

And, quite frankly, they are not supposed to be drinking anyway 

because they are below the age of 21, so we need to address that 

problem, and we are going to need parental help in that area. We 

need parents to take responsibility and work with their children, 

and we need to have law enforcement out there doing their best, 

and they are doing, by the way, a terrific job. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, I can still remember—in fact, as I am sitting 

here thinking about it, I can picture in my mind when I was in 

high school, there was this terrible wreck, and just a group of people on their own—it wasn’t the government that did it—they 

brought that crashed car that was just all smashed up to our high 

school and set it out in front of the school for a few days, and, boy, 

I tell you it made an impact. We need to be doing things like that 

in all these high schools all over the Country, and showing things 

on videos and all kinds of things. 

Is NHTSA doing anything to ensure the safe operation of these 

15-passenger vans? We are going to hear some testimony about 

that on the next panel. 

Mr. PORTS. Yes, sir, absolutely we are. We are working very aggressively on the 15-passenger van situation. As you know, Administrator Nicole Nason put out an announcement earlier in the year. 

By the way, I want to thank you for your resolution—I think it was 

964—in April of this year to address that problem. 

16 

There are a few things that we definitely know about the 15-passenger vehicles. One, we did put electronic stability control, we 

mandated electronic stability control in all vehicles starting in 

2011, which we believe is probably the next best safety device and 

countermeasure since the seat belt. We expect that to help in these 

rollover situations and reduce the risk of rollover. We also have 

been very aggressive in talking about maintenance of tires and tire 

pressures. It also saves energy, Madam Chairman. But it is very 

important to the safety of your family and the vehicle and its performance. 

We also recognize that one of the problems with the 15-passenger 

vans is overloading. When you overload that vehicle—and there are 

specifications in the door jams of every vehicle with the weight the 

vehicle can handle. We need people to understand the capacity of 

these vehicles. 

Again, as I mentioned, we want to recognize your resolution that 

you were proactive in passing, which really addresses the inexperienced drivers. When you have all of these other factors occurring 

and you put an inexperienced driver into the seat of that 15-passenger van, in the driver’s seat, I should say, that is potential for 

a hazard. 

Mr. DUNCAN. All right, thank you very much. 

Ms. Siggerud, one thing I have become really concerned about 

the last couple of years has been motorcycle wrecks and deaths, because I started noticing on the second page of the local section of 

the Knoxville News Sentinel, almost every day they have a story 

about a motorcyclist being killed. Then, I also have been reading 

that the numbers of people 40, 50, and 60 that are buying motorcycles is just exploding, going way, way up. 

In your study of all this—you even, I think, have noticed the 

number of motorcycles registered is going way up and predicted 

that it is going to go up even further—are there any States out 

there that are doing dramatic or unusual or very innovative programs about motorcycle safety? 

Ms. SIGGERUD. Mr. Duncan, it is an excellent question. In our 

work we did notice all the problems that you mentioned, and it is, 

I think, most interesting to note that the fatality numbers that we 

are seeing now are very much driven by the motorcycle fatalities. 

If it weren’t for the increase in motorcycle fatalities over the last 

decade, we would see this annual number actually make some 

progress and start to go down over the past decade. 

In our work on this issue, we did not study specifically what activities States were undertaking and whether some of them were 

particularly interesting or innovative. What we did hear, though, 

in looking at the motorcycle incentive grants, which we did earlier 

this year, that is one of the smaller grants in the incentive grant 

program and it is also restricted largely to education-related activities. So we raise as an issue for authorization next year whether 

there perhaps are some different approaches that could be used in 

that grant to make it more effective. 

Mr. DUNCAN. I just think, based on what I have been reading 

and hearing, that maybe we ought to increase that grant program 

more, maybe, than perhaps some others, because it looks to me like 

there needs to be some special efforts directed in that way also. 

17 

Mr. Murphy, according to your testimony, you say we can be on 

a path towards cutting accident fatalities in half by 2030 by simply 

annually reducing losses by 1,000 per year. You note that we came 

close to that in 2006. Do you know of anything that we were doing 

differently then or better then, as opposed to prior years, or do you 

have any key suggestions in regard to all these things I have been 

asking these other witnesses? 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you for the question, Ranking Member Duncan. A lot of this has to do with high-visibility enforcement programs. More and more States are participating and more local 

agencies are participating. I think with motorcycle safety, one of 

the key things States need to do is pass mandatory helmet laws for 

all riders. For seat belt safety, States need to pass primary seat 

belt laws. These are two critical lifesaving laws that we know will 

save lives. 

I think it really comes down to the education, enforcement, and 

engineering, but high-visibility enforcement, be it Click It or Ticket, Drunk Driving Over the Limit, those programs have been very 

successful. 

Mr. DUNCAN. All right, thank you very much. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Second round, Mr. Sires. 

Mr. SIRES. I just have a quick question. When I went to high 

school, we had a very good driver’s ed program, where they actually took you on the road, they had the cars and everything else. 

But we notice, due to the budget crunch, a lot of the schools are 

going away from that. Have you noticed that as a national trend 

in most of the States because of the problems with the budgets on 

the board of educations, that they are reducing their driver’s ed 

program? Anyone. 

Mr. PORTS. I am not sure I can answer from a total national 

standpoint, but we have seen that a lot of the States have moved 

from the high schools into the privatization of those schools for 

budgetary reasons, yes. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you. Anybody else? No? Thank you. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Yes, I will give her a chance to settle down, 

then I will ask some questions. You are going to have some questions, Ms. Richardson? I will let you mull it over. 

One of the questions that I had mulling in my mind, and we 

have discussed this, the Click It or Ticket, but how effective is it 

in States without primary seat belt laws, or is it effective? Anybody? 

Ms. SIGGERUD. Well, the Click It or Ticket campaign in general, 

you can see the before and after effect, where you see an increase 

in seat belt use in the wake of these Click It or Ticket campaigns 

in any State. But it is very clear that there is a strong correlation 

between the overall, year-long use of safety belts and whether 

there is a primary law in place; and, of course, the use is much 

higher in States that have the primary law. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Anybody else? 

Mr. PORTS. Sure. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for that question, it is an excellent question. 

We know that States with secondary laws average about 73 percent usage. Yet, States with primary seat belt laws average about 

87 percent. We also know, through our statistics and data, that for 

18 

every percent increase, it is about 280 lives saved. That is a significant number. So the more that we can induce primary seat belt 

laws, and the more education we can have through the Click It or 

Ticket campaigns to increase awareness and get people to use those 

seat belts would be very, very beneficial. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. What is preventing, in your estimation, the 

States from enacting primary laws for seat belt usage? Is it willpower, is it political? Are you tying some of the grant money to the 

ability to have a primary seat belt law? 

Mr. PORTS. Through SAFETEA-LU we do have a primary seat 

belt incentive grant, and sometimes people say it may not be as effective because there may only be eight States that want the primary laws, but we look at it a little differently. Like I said, we are 

very dedicated to saving each and every life, and for every percentage point, as I just mentioned, 280 lives saved. So we tend to measure that statistic a little differently, that we are doing a good job 

and we are educating the population. 

When you see numbers as high as 87 percent, that is 87 percent 

of the people who are wearing their seat belts. That is a significant 

amount of the population. There are some States that are over 95 

percent at this point, and that is a terrific number. But a lot of 

that, as I mentioned, is enforcement. So enforcement is a key component. I know that Chris Murphy, we worked very closely with 

Chris on many issues. This was one of the issues that I am sure 

he would agree with us, that enforcement is a key component of 

this strategy. 

Mr. MURPHY. Madam Chair, if I might add, in California, we actually wrote more seat belt citations when we were a secondary 

State than when we became a primary State, and I think that is 

kind of an interesting fact. Primary seat belt use and the us of seat 

belts, there is nothing more important. It takes two seconds to 

buckle up. A lot of States legislatures feel that it is giving up freedom. They don’t want someone telling them what to do. 

But, my God, primary seat belt laws will cure the disease of unsafe highways. It is something that will save lives overnight. In 

California, our seat belt use increased 10 percentage points when 

we passed our primary seat law in 1993. It has been a phenomenal 

law. In California, our seat belt use is 94.6 percent. We are the 

fourth highest in the Nation, and our goal is to hit 96 percent next 

year, so we have a lot of work to do. And the people that are not 

buckling up now are the very, very hard to reach, especially when 

you get in the 90 percent range. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Madam Chair, would the Chair yield? 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Certainly. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. In that context, what, then, has been the effect 

of improved seat belt use? That is a phenomenal number, I congratulate you on it, but what has been the effect in the traveled 

way in accidents? Have there been lower fatality numbers, lower 

injury numbers? That combined with air bags, can you enlighten 

us on that? 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Congressman. One of the interesting 

facts is that, in California, a very high number of fatal vehicle occupants are killed restrained. We have the highest in the Nation. 

So we know that seat belts are, as you know, 50 percent effective 

19 

in preventing death, and we have seen in California that our fatal 

occupant protection rate is the absolute highest. In other States— 

Oregon, Washington, Hawaii—they are at the top too. 

So there is a definite correlation between seat belt use in fatal 

vehicle occupants and our observational studies, which tell us we 

are absolutely saving lives. In California, I believe our fatalities 

this year should be down the biggest number probably in seven or 

eight years. So we really believe that more people would have died 

in California had we not had primary seat belt use and if we would 

not have had such a high seat belt use rate. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. What is your relationship between—if I may, 

Madam Chair—— 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Certainly. 

Mr. OBERSTAR.—between alcohol and accidents and fatalities and 

then seat belt use? Which has the greater effect? 

Mr. MURPHY. Well, we know about 40 percent of all fatal crashes 

are alcohol-involved. But if you look at a behavior that is easiest 

to change, it is buckling up. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Buckling up a lot better than driver education on 

alcohol use and driving? 

Mr. MURPHY. I don’t know that I would necessarily say that, but 

I think it is much easier to get someone to buckle up; they do it 

16 times, it becomes a habit. A lot of people that are drinking now, 

the hard-core drinkers, there are other issues. So the seat belt is 

such an easy, easy fix. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

Continuing with my line of questioning, to Mr. Ports, the GAO 

and the DOT Inspector General have raised questions with the inconsistency and the oversight of the State Highway Safety programs, and there have also been concerns over the consistency of 

the performance measures the agency uses in evaluating States’ 

progress towards meeting its goals. There is a lot of talk about increased accountability in moving towards a more performancebased program. Consistent oversight and evaluation standards 

would be critical to establishing the accountability necessary to ensure States are meeting the national safety goals. And while it appears that the organization has made some progress over the last 

few years, the concerns remain. 

What are you doing to address these issues raised by both GAO 

and the Inspector General? 

Mr. PORTS. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. First of all, I want 

to thank GAO for their help in this issue, and also the IG’s office 

that you just mentioned. Again, we are very dedicated to saving 

lives and reducing injuries, and we look to anyone that can help, 

and we appreciate all your help in Congress, too. 

In addressing this issue, we look at the management reviews, 

and we do those every three years. If a State is not making their 

performance criteria, then we work with them on an action plan. 

We also have the special management reviews that we are doing. 

And I believe the GAO’s recommendation was to look at performance measures. 

I can assure you and the rest of the Committee that we did just 

that. We looked at that issue from GAO and we are working with 

20 

GHSA, as well as the rest of the States. We have got about a dozen 

to 14 performance measures for the first time, and I believe Chris 

actually—we spoke a little bit about this earlier. He was very excited because the States have not had performance measures to 

look at before, and they too are excited about this process of being 

able to measure the performance of these grant programs. 

Obviously, one of the difficult issues is the diversity of the local 

jurisdictions and their ability. As we heard earlier, they may not 

have the personnel or the ability, and the diversity of the issues 

within that community. So we are trying to work with all those to 

mesh those together to come up with these performance measures 

moving forward. We are very excited about that. We have looked 

forward to working with the States and GHSA, and, of course, finalizing the report to GAO and the IG and yourselves on the 

progress that we are going to be making in the next few years. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you for that answer. One of the questions that I had in mind after reading some of the testimony is that 

many States have national safety plans. You do not. Can we expect 

one? 

Mr. PORTS. We work very closely with the States and make sure 

that each and every State has a safety plan. That is really what 

we are to do. We are the clearinghouse and we are looking to work 

with the States because, quite frankly, the States know their State 

better and their local jurisdictions better than we do on the national level. So we look at it as a cooperative partnership between 

the national priorities and the State priorities. As I just mentioned 

with the performance measures, they have different situations that 

they are in, and we need to work very closely with them. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. I know Canada has one. I am not 

sure how effective their plan is, but I am assuming that they are 

doing very well. 

There are other questions, I think, Ms. Richardson. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Yes, thank you, Madam Chairman. 

A couple of questions. First of all, is there an overall signage 

plan for the safety for what you do on the highways? Do we have 

a signage plan? 

Ms. SIGGERUD. Ms. Richardson, signage policy is really handled 

by the Federal Highway Administration, and there is in fact an entire manual—— 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Would you pull the mic up a little bit to you, 

please? 

Ms. SIGGERUD. Absolutely. Sure. 

So road signage and road marking is handled by the Federal 

Highway Administration, together with AASHTO, the organization 

of State DOTs, and there is an entire manual on what they call 

traffic control devices, which includes both signage, road markings, 

and traffic lights and that kind of thing. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. But from a safety perspective, do you have a 

signage plan? 

Mr. PORTS. No, we don’t have a specific signage plan. However, 

what I can tell you, from a speed research perspective, NHTSA’s 

role, what we are doing is we are working very closely with the 

States through the regional offices on speed management workshops. What we have found is that people in the communities, if 

21 

they think a speed limit is arbitrarily set, they don’t abide by it. 

So through these speed management workshops and the behavioral 

research that we have done, we found that if you set the speed limits appropriately and then create the enforcement behind that, that 

you have much better speed control. So—— 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Okay, excuse me. I don’t know if you heard 

what I said. I am talking about signage, not speed. Let me give you 

a few specific examples. I come from the California area, as the 

Chairwoman of this Committee is holding right now. I have seen 

on various highways where you see the sign Click It or whatever. 

You rarely see anything about driving in my blind spot, some of the 

key things that are just repeated accidents over and over again: 

driving in the blind spot, are your tires properly inflated. A lot of 

these things, with proper reminders of drivers, could reduce some 

of the incidences that we have. 

So my question is do you have a signage program as a part of 

your safety program that could maybe incorporate periodically placing some signs that would be very good reminders to drivers to increase safety, besides the once every 10 years when they take the 

driving test? 

Mr. PORTS. Okay, I maybe can more effectively address that 

question. 

The States are allowed to use some of their grant funds to create 

signs if they decide that they would want to do it. For example, the 

seat belts, seat belt enforcement. I know that when I was in Washington State I saw quite a few signs that address that. So it is really up to the local governments to decide how they want to do that. 

In my previous life as a State deputy secretary, we also had to 

abide by the highway beautification laws from, I guess, 1968, that 

try to reduce the amount of signages. One of the issues that we 

hear a lot in the communities is the overabundance of signs. So I 

think it is up to the local governments to decide how that issue 

would fare with their constituents. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Would you mind looking into some of the major 

causes of incidents of accidents and maybe doing a double check of 

that and seeing if there is something you may want to recommend 

or at least have the States to consider? 

The other thing is the use of electronic boards. We recently, in 

California, had the whole thing of hands-free and no longer being 

able to use your cell phone, and the electronic boards that normally 

dictate the flow of traffic and what is happening ahead was utilized 

to announce that today is July 1st and this is now into effect. 

So the other question I would have is to what degree are you, 

from a safety perspective, utilizing those electronic boards? Now, of 

course, you can’t do them every day and every month, but there 

might be some coordination that could exist that, for key problems 

that you have; Click It, drunk driving, whatever it might be beyond 

the 4th of July on the holiday we should be talking about not doing 

drunk driving, it could be on the weekends. 

So I would just urge you to evaluate some of the consistent problems that we are having and look at some of the existing signage 

that you have and how we could better utilize that to reach out to 

the drivers. 

22 

Mr. PORTS. We actually work with the States on our Click It or 

Ticket program and our Over the Limit, Under Arrest drunk driving campaigns to do just that. But we would be more than happy 

to look into that issue further and get back with you. That is a terrific idea. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Okay. Then I have 14 seconds. I understand 

my colleague asked a little bit about cell phones, and I was in another Committee markup. Has there been any discussion about 

out-ruling texting while people are driving nationwide? Has there 

been a discussion? Have you thought of that? 

Mr. PORTS. NHTSA’s position on any distraction is that we don’t 

think anybody should do anything that would distract them from 

driving. However, we also need to keep in mind that we only have 

jurisdiction over what is in the vehicle from the manufacturer’s 

standpoint. As far as a cell phone or texting with a cell phone that 

you bring into the vehicle, we do not have jurisdiction over that, 

so then it becomes a local jurisdiction decision. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Are GPS systems under that same? 

Mr. PORTS. If the GPS system is part of the vehicle, from the 

manufacturer, we can address it. If it is brought in from your local 

store, then we cannot; we do not have jurisdiction over that. 

Ms. RICHARDSON. Okay. 

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for giving me the extra 50 seconds. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

Mr. Oberstar. Chairman Oberstar, sir. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. 

I appreciate the testimony of this panel and the documents you 

have submitted are very well done, thoughtfully considered. 

Mr. Ports, I have a very particular interest in the national driver 

register. Actually, the idea of the national driver register was 

launched by our former colleague, Congressman John Rhodes, of 

Arizona, later the minority leader in the House. After he left Congress, I picked up on that initiative through a very personal involvement. A family across the circle from where we lived was devastated; their daughter, who had been a babysitter for our children, 

was killed when a truck crashed into their car pulled well off the 

traveled way up at Fall River, Massachusetts. 

The truck driver, as it turned out, had a driver license revoked 

in one State, suspended in another, and was still able to get a driver license from a third State, driving and careless and reckless, and 

one life was lost. All the family had broken bones. As I visited 

them in the hospital, they said all we want, we can’t bring Cami 

back, we just want to do something so that people like this can’t 

get on the road again. 

I looked up the national driver register and talked with then retired Congressman Rhodes, and in 1982 I was able to get language 

in the surface transportation bill to update the NDR, to have a 

pointer system operated by the State Association Motor Vehicle administrators. At that time drivers were being caught with multiple 

licenses, but there was a three-to four-week delay because all the 

information was mailed in from the respective State motor vehicle 

administrative offices. 

23 

With the pointer system and computers even in their, compared 

to today, infancy, we expected that there would be a substantial increase, and there was. But I am troubled by the IG report of significant delays in reporting from the various States into the NDR 

and then information back out to catch these bad drivers, for want 

of a better word, those who have manifestly demonstrated they 

shouldn’t have another license. If they had it revoked or suspended 

or they have serious violations in one State, to try to get a license 

in another State, we shouldn’t let those people out on the roadway 

when we have a mechanism by which to stop it. What attention 

have you paid to the NDR, to the report of the IG, and what plans 

do you have to take action? 

Mr. PORTS. First of all, I appreciate that question. You are very 

knowledgeable, obviously, of this issue. Not only has NHTSA paid 

attention to this issue, I personally have paid significant amount 

of attention to this issue. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Good. 

Mr. PORTS. I have been working very closely with members of 

AMFA when they brought some situations to us earlier in the year; 

I have been working with our folks in NDR. You had mentioned 

the CDL situation, where people were able to get different licenses 

in different States, and you are right, Congress passed a law and 

we prohibit that now. The issue that the IG brought up to us is 

that the States were not providing the information according to law 

and/or regulation within a 30-day time period. 

We were glad the IG brought that to our attention, because it 

helped us recognize that there is a lot of turnover in the States 

through the MVA or DMV directors or administrators, whoever the 

top person is in that State. They did not even realize that they had 

that requirement. So we worked very vigorously; we got the information, mailed out the letters right away. Administrator Nason did 

that, mailed them out to every State, making sure that they were 

aware of the requirements to report within 30 days. 

We are also working through that process with the judiciary, because part of the problem is, in the judicial process, they were not 

getting the information to the MVAs or the DMVs. So through this 

process of the IG making us aware of this situation, we were able 

to also work with the judiciary, thinking forward on other ways 

that may improve our successes. 

Again, I mentioned, we were working with AMFA. We have a 

great relationship; we constantly talk. I am also going to be speaking at their national convention. So we are all over this issue personally and through NHTSA. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I am glad to hear of personal interest, that you 

are on top, that you are making those inquiries, you are talking to 

the association and on the NDR, but I would like some statistics 

updated on how many drivers are being caught applying for multiple licenses. How many have been intercepted, prevented? What 

is the effect of the computer-updated NDR? What additional steps 

should we take or are necessary to be taken? You have mentioned 

one, educate the State motor vehicle administrators on what their 

responsibilities are and on taking prompt and vigorous action. You 

mentioned earlier one important action we can take that immeVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:26 Jun 25, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\43655 JASON
24 

diately saves lives is seat belts. Another is keeping the bad drivers 

off the road. 

In this Committee room 20 years ago, I held hearings on the future of transportation in the post-interstate era. Among the demographic information submitted at the hearing was the projection 

that—this was 1987—that by the end of the decade of the 1990s, 

half of all drivers would be 50 years of age and older. That set off 

two tracks in my mind: one, more leisure time for driving, more opportunity to see the historical, cultural, archeological treasures of 

America, and I developed the National Scenic Byways from that; 

the second was a need for better signage, more visible signage, better retro-reflective material, better pavement marking material. 

And those projections proved right, we are now well over half of 

all drivers 50 years of age and older. People living longer, driving 

longer. Older people are involved in fewer accidents, but they have 

a higher fatality rate because of fragility of bones as you age. What 

steps are you doing, taking to deal with the older driver phenomenon? 

The Federal Highway Administration Byway, by the way, has 

been absolutely hopeless in their responsibility to promulgate a 

higher standard of retro-reflectivity, of pavement marking, shoulder striping, center striping, both yellow and white; and there is 

material out there that could be vastly better, especially on asphalt 

pavement in rain, and they have been hopelessly behind the curve 

on this. Now, NHTSA should be prodding them, pushing them, as 

a sister agency or brother agency—whatever you want to call it— 

in the department. 

Mr. PORTS. To answer the first part of your question, we would 

be more than happy to get all that statistical data for you from the 

NDR system. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Have you seen the two volume work of the University of Minnesota Center of Transportation studies on the older 

driver? I suggest you get a copy of the two volume work and read 

through it, it is a very, very useful document. 

Mr. PORTS. Well, to address the older driver part of our question, 

we are conducting research and looking at assessments as screening tools to predict how older drivers might likely survive or be involved in a crash. We are also looking at the long-term post-crash 

medical outcomes of those drivers. We are gathering the information. GAO asked us to be a clearinghouse, and that is exactly what 

we are going to do. 

We are looking at fitness screening for other drivers by licensing 

agencies, family physicians, friends, and we are looking at all these 

other factors to determine how we can better address the vehicle 

side for older drivers to help them survive a crash or reduce injuries. So we are looking at those technologies also. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Are you doing that under the special designation 

we included in the current law? The very first word of that acronym, SAFETEA-LU, is safe; safe, affordable, etc. There is 

$1,700,000 for research into traffic safety measures specifically directed at the older driver. 

Mr. PORTS. That is correct, yes. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Is the work you are referring to done under that 

or under other provisions? 

25 

Mr. PORTS. Most of the work we are doing is done under that. 

We also have demonstration projects in Missouri, New Jersey, and 

Virginia that I am sure you are aware of to establish older driver 

coalitions and enhanced driver referral programs. So all of these 

things that we have going on at NHTSA are trying to address the 

older driver situation, both from the vehicle side, the safety side, 

and behavioral side. 

Ms. SIGGERUD. Chairman Oberstar, if I may. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Yes. 

Ms. SIGGERUD. You may be aware the GAO issued a report on 

this topic last year. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Yes. 

Ms. SIGGERUD. And I can cover perhaps a little bit on the FHWA 

side. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. You are next on my list. 

Ms. SIGGERUD. Okay. So setting aside the retro-reflectivity issue, 

there is a manual of suggestions for improved signage and other 

improvements that would help older drivers in terms of navigating 

the roadway, navigating intersections, that type of thing. We did 

a survey and found that about half the States had adopted at least 

some of those recommended activities. 

What was interesting from that is that we saw much wider benefits than just for older drivers, however. Any improvements to 

street signs, any improvements to being able to navigate an intersection safely helps the entire population, not just the population 

that was targeted, the older drivers. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Murphy, do you have any comments about 

retro-reflectivity marking material for pavement and signage? 

What is California doing about that? Goodness knows you have the 

biggest number of drivers and most miles driven and most vehicle 

miles traveled in California. 

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, that is not an area 

that I am familiar with. Our Department of Transportation, 

Caltrans, is very active in that area. We do have an older driver 

task force that is looking at that. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Pavement markings and retro-reflectivity of signage is not under traffic safety in California? 

Mr. MURPHY. It is under CalTrans. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. I will have to talk to Will about that, then, Will 

Kempton. 

All right, there are lots of other questions I have, and I see Mr. 

Boozman has arrived. 

I just want to ask about motorcycle helmet law. It is a dangerous 

area to walk into. Motorcyclists treasure their ability to get on the 

cycle and ride, as one of my friends said, and let the wind blow 

through my hair. Well, if I had hair, I might feel good about that 

myself. Hair is greatly overrated. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. OBERSTAR. But your head is the first thing that hits the 

pavement in a crash, it is the heaviest single part of the body. I 

am reminded of a story in the State of Wisconsin that legislature 

enacted a motorcycle helmet law, and not long afterward the motorcyclists got up a petition, angry about the requirement to wear 

a helmet, submitted the petition to the legislature; they repealed 

26 

the law the next session. In the aftermath of the repeal, there was 

a motorcycle accident; a cyclist went right into a truck, head-first, 

and killed. He was the first one to have signed that petition. It is 

a tragic story. 

What are you doing, if anything, about motorcycle helmets, at 

least in education, if not requirement? 

Mr. PORTS. Thank you for that question. It is a very important 

topic, especially to Secretary Peters. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Yes. 

Mr. PORTS. As you know, she is an avid rider. Matter of fact, she 

spoke today at Ride to Work Day, and spoke specifically about her 

crash and how her helmet is in her office as a reminder of how it 

potentially saved her life when she crashed. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. A helmet saved mine on a bicycle. 

Mr. PORTS. There you go. So she is all over this issue. Safety is 

second to none with her and Administrator Nason. As a matter of 

fact, what we asked Congress to do this year is to allow the States 

to use their 2010 monies from SAFETEA-LU, to allow the States 

to use that money for educating riders on helmet safety. That is 

one of the proposals. 

Some of the other proposals that Secretary Peters has initiated 

is the labeling of the helmet. She wants to change the way that we 

label them, so that you can’t tamper with them, but so that you 

can’t have these helmets that would disguise the DOT label as a 

safety label. So we are looking at increasing labeling effectiveness. 

We are looking at education measures. 

We also recognize that because of the heavy increase, 127 percent since 1997, that there are a lot of other factors. Alcohol is a 

factor. We are looking at peer-to-peer counseling with riders to try 

and take away the keys, much like we did in other campaigns. We 

are also looking at the rider’s age, the endorsement training programs through the States, as well as working with the motorcycle 

community. We work very closely with the motorcycle community. 

We have got Packy back here, who is a good friend of mine from 

Maryland, and others that we work with in that community to help 

educate rider training, and they do a fabulous job with rider training and equipment. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank my colleagues for their patience. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. You are very welcome, and very good questions, Mr. Chairman. You had a little story about the motorcycle 

issue. I was in California when it was enacted, I was in the State 

legislature, and my niece, a motorcycle enthusiast, wrote a letter 

to me really calling me you know what because I had dared to prohibit her ability to ride without a helmet. About four months later 

she was involved in a traffic accident and the doctors told her had 

she not been wearing the helmet, she would have been dead. She 

is still walking with crutches, and this is about six years since that 

accident. So I understand. 

We went to the emergency hospitals and asked the EMTs and 

the doctors in charge about the fatalities, and 99 percent of them 

that replied indicated that if some of those who were involved in 

motorcycle accidents had been wearing a helmet, they could have 

27 

possibly survived. So that was a big motivator for us, because a lot 

of those folks did not have insurance and the taxpayer ends up 

paying for a lot of those services. And while it is something that 

is a freedom—my husband keeps saying if my hair flew, I would 

like to have a convertible—he has no hair—so it is a great saying, 

but truly I think it does save lives. 

With that, I would like to turn it over to Mr. Duncan for his final 

question. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, I know we need to get very quickly to the 

next panel. But because Mr. Poe earlier today got into the issue 

about the safety, or lack thereof, of these larger buses, I did want 

to state for the record that we do have a bill that I think we are 

going to mark up fairly soon that directs NHTSA to look at occupant protection systems and window glazing and roof strength 

issues and things like that, and issue a rule on these issues. They 

basically are consistent with NTSB recommendations on motorcoach safety. 

But one last brief question I have. I pointed out earlier the dramatic difference between male and female accident and fatality 

rates, but, Ms. Siggerud, do you know if anybody has studied that? 

Do men drive more than women, on average? 

Ms. SIGGERUD. Well, that is certainly true, men do drive more 

than women, yes. 

Mr. DUNCAN. How much? 

Ms. SIGGERUD. I don’t have those statistics at my fingertips, I am 

sorry. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Is it dramatic, is it a great deal of difference? 

Ms. SIGGERUD. I am sure that is something we could probably 

look up and get back to you. I wouldn’t want to opine on that unless I had a stronger sense of the statistics. 

Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Okay, thank you very much. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Boys are more daredevils and they love speed. 

With that, I think—— 

Mr. OBERSTAR. If there are no other questions—— 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Just one final observation for our panel. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Yield to Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. That is, in May, I traveled to Europe to address 

the 27 transport ministers of the European Union, at their annual 

conference. In preparation for that session, which was very interesting and informative gathering—I talked to them about transportation in the U.S. and our plans for investment in the future, but 

one of their keen interests is safety. 

Now, the European Union has roughly 500 million people, about 

the same land area in its expansion as the United States. Five 

years ago they had 53,000 fatalities on their highways; last year 

they had 43,000 fatalities. They have made a dramatic drop in fatalities with enforcement, education, and better signage and dealing with alcohol and driving, and as in the case of Portugal, it is 

a crime in Portugal to use a cell phone while driving. They have 

cracked down on cell phone use, among other distractions. 

We will send you information on this, we have a compendium of 

information that I think you at NHTSA should have, if you haven’t 

paid attention to it, that GAO should do, and to look carefully at 

28 

the European practices. We ought to do at least as well. If we could 

have a 10,000 reduction in fatalities in the United States over the 

course of the next six-year bill, I would be thrilled, and families 

would be happy and there would be less grieving in this Country. 

We have got to do better and I tell you we are going to do better 

in the next transportation bill. 

You can comment if you wish. 

Mr. PORTS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to let you know, 

we are members of the Economic Commission for Europe and very 

involved with the WP.1 and WP.29 Committees. We share information with them constantly. A terrific example of that is ESC, electronic stability control. They invented the technology in Europe; we 

mandated it on our vehicles first. I personally spoke over in Europe 

to talk about the effects of ESC and how successful we were in 

mandating that terrific technology. Since that time, they are now 

mandating it. They just had a convention in Geneva where they 

took up a GTR, and they are now mandating that technology and 

following our lead, if you will. 

So we work very closely with them in sharing information and 

we look forward to working with them in the future to reducing fatalities and injuries, as you mentioned. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. 

Any other comments? 

[No response.] 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, sir. 

With that, we would like to thank the witnesses and dismiss 

them. We are very grateful for your testimony, especially the 

GAO’s report, which I found very enlightening. Thank you very 

much to all three of you. With that, you are dismissed. 

We would like to call the second panel, Mr. Patrick James from 

the American Center for Van and Tire Safety, from Knoxville, Tennessee; Ms. Laura Dean Mooney, President, Mothers Against 

Drunk Driving, from Washington, D.C.; Ms. Jill Ingrassia, Managing Director, Government Relations & Traffic Safety Advocacy, 

AAA, in Washington, D.C.; Ms. Jacqueline S. Gillan, Vice President, Advocates for Highway & Auto Safety, Washington, D.C.; and 

the Honorable Bob Letourneau, New Hampshire State Senator, 

Motorcycle Riders Foundation, in Concord, New Hampshire. 

Welcome. Let’s see, we will start off Mr. James, Ms. Mooney, Ms. 

Ingrassia, Ms. Gillan, and Mr. Letourneau. 

I believe Mr. Duncan has a couple of comments as an introductory to make to Mr. James. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. 

In my opening statement, I already mentioned Patrick James and 

the very tragic situation involving his daughter, Lexie, and he will 

tell a little bit more about that. But I do want to welcome him. As 

I say, I have a little over 700,000 bosses, and Mr. James is one of 

my bosses, and we have been working with him both through my 

office and the Committee staff here, and I appreciate that very 

much. I am very impressed by the efforts that he has been making 

in regard to trying to make our highways a little safer. I want to 

welcome him to the Committee. 

29 

Unfortunately, I do have a meeting that I have to be at at noon, 

so I will have to leave in just a few minutes, but at least I will be 

here for Mr. James’ testimony, and I want to welcome him here 

once again. 

Thank you very much. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Mr. Duncan. 

With that, we will start with the testimony of Mr. James. 

TESTIMONY OF PATRICK JAMES, AMERICAN CENTER FOR VAN 

AND TIRE SAFETY; LAURA DEAN MOONEY, PRESIDENT, 

MOTHERS AGAINST DRUNK DRIVING; JILL INGRASSIA, MANAGING DIRECTOR, GOVERNMENT RELATIONS & TRAFFIC 

SAFETY ADVOCACY, AAA; JACQUELINE S. GILLAN, VICE 

PRESIDENT, ADVOCATES FOR HIGHWAY & AUTO SAFETY; 

AND THE HONORABLE BOB LETOURNEAU, NEW HAMPSHIRE 

STATE SENATOR, MOTORCYCLE FOUNDATION, CONCORD, 

NEW HAMPSHIRE 

Mr. JAMES. Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Duncan, and 

members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here 

today to speak to you. My name is Patrick James, and I am here 

with my wife Kelli and son Austin to talk with you about the deadly combination of 15-passenger vans, aged tires, and vehicles that 

are rollover-prone and lack occupant protection. 

I am testifying before you one year to the day I last talked to my 

daughter. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. She is a beautiful young lady, sir. 

Mr. JAMES. She was excited about going to play with her old softball team in a tournament in Savannah, Georgia the following day. 

Twenty-four hours later, my family and friends’ lives were changed 

forever. At 12:30, July 17th, 2007, we started receiving phone calls 

from friends, informing us that Alexis had been in an accident. The 

van’s left rear tire had ample tread and looked like new, but it was 

13 years old; and when it failed on the highway in South Carolina, 

the van rolled over and my daughter was ejected, even though she 

was wearing her seat belt. 

I was pulling into the airport parking lot when I received a 

phone call from the ER doctor. He informed me my daughter Alexis, Lexie, James had died from heart failure. I remember sitting in 

my car, looking into the lobby of the airport, watching my son and 

wife, and knowing what I had to do, go tell her mom and brother 

that Alexis had passed away. 

I never gave a second thought to the vehicle Lexie would be taking to their tournament. But I have spent the last 12 months learning everything I could about 15-passenger vans and tire safety, and 

what I found out stunned me. 

These vehicles, which were first introduced in the 1970s and 

have a long history of single-vehicle rollovers accidents and lack 

general lack of crashworthiness. They are more prone to roll over 

than other vehicles and have higher rollover fatality rates than 

other vehicles. The odds of a rollover for a 15-passenger van increase more than 400 percent when the van is fully loaded. From 

1997 to 2006, 15-passenger van crashes caused 1,090 occupant fatalities, and 534 of these people died in preventable crashes. 

30 

I have also learned that tires degrade over time and heat exposure, regardless of whether they have been used or have adequate 

tread. As early as 1990, some manufacturers began warning consumers about the use of older tires more than six years old. Last 

August, NHTSA submitted a report to Congress on tire aging that 

affirmed this warning. The agency cited statistics from a large insurance company showing that 27 percent of policyholders were 

from warm weather States—Texas, California, Louisiana, Florida, 

and Arizona. But 77 percent of the tire claims came from those 

States and 84 percent of those claims were for tires over six years 

old. According to a survey by Rubber Manufacturers Association, 

16.4 percent of tires in service are six years old or older. 

Most tires will wear out before they ‘‘age out.’’ But there are 

many circumstances in which older tires end up on vehicles like 

the one my daughter was in. The most common is the full-size 

spare that is put into service after many years in the trunk or 

under the car. Many 15-passenger vans are owned by community 

groups that don’t use them on a daily or even a weekly basis. If 

the mileage is low, the possibility exists that the tire could exceed 

their safe, useful life. Our small scale study that I did with my father-in-law showed that 23 percent of 15-passenger vans surveyed 

have tires that are 10 or more years old. 

I didn’t know any of that before July 17th, 2007, but I have dedicated the last year to informing as many people as I can. In January, my family founded the American Center for Van and Tire 

Safety to warn the public about these significant dangers. 

Perhaps the biggest lesson I have learned is that 15-passenger 

van rollover crashes are the most extreme and horrifying example 

of what is missing in our current rollover occupant protection regulations and that tire age is something most people, including tire 

service professionals, are not aware of. 

In any crash, it isn’t just one thing that saves the driver or the 

passenger from injury or death. It isn’t one thing that keeps the 

crash from happening in the first place. It is a lot of elements 

working together. As I sit before you today, on July 16th, 2008, 

knowing everything I know, there are still many pieces missing in 

our Federal safety regulation to prevent and reduce the harm from 

rollover crashes. 

We have taken a few steps forward. Many Federal safety standards for passenger vehicles and light trucks have been expanded to 

include new 15-passenger vans. The SAFETEA-LU bill of 2005 requires NHTSA to issue a report on tire aging. The agency has 

begun to upgrade the roof crush standard and, last month, it issued 

a consumer advisory that included some information about aged 

tires. 

But the roof crush standard has stalled. The final tire aging report with rulemaking recommendations remains in the agency’s 

hands. It is still near impossible for the average person, or even a 

service technician, to read a tire date code or learn about the consumer advisory. 

Our goal now is to push for improvements to 15-passenger vans, 

to eliminate aged tires from our fleet, and keep these issues in 

front of the public. 

31 

But my family and our organization cannot do it alone. So I 

would like to close my testimony with a little bit of automotive history and a challenge. 

Forty-three years ago, almost to this day, there was another congressional hearing on the effectiveness of NHTSA’s programs. The 

hearings continued over a week in mid-July. The witnesses included executives from all major American auto manufacturers. 

The centerpiece of Ford Motor Company’s testimony was a short 

movie demonstrating the crashworthiness of a 1961 Comet. 

Picture, if you will, a grainy black and white film of a white 

sedan heading for a ramp. The ramp tips and the passenger side 

wheels and the Comet rolls over twice. The cameras inside of the 

car show the seat-belted dummies in the front bounced by the 

crash force, but otherwise unharmed. When the Comet comes to 

rest upright, the roof is intact and dummies are still in their seats. 

I am not sure how many automakers today would show such a 

thing to Congress. I do, though, know in 1965 manufacturers were 

on the path to building vehicles that offered significant occupant 

protection in rollovers. But in the absence of regulatory standards, 

we have strayed far from the path. We have spent decades building 

vehicles that are more prone to rollovers instead of less, with weaker roofs instead of stronger, and restraint systems that do not work 

in the moment when our lives depend on it. 

Lexie died before she grew up and made her own way in the 

world, but that does not mean she cannot leave a lasting legacy. 

With your help, it can be done and that will spare others the pain 

of knowing that a loved one died in a crash that they could have 

survived. 

Despite the improvements to 15-passenger van design required 

by SAFETEA-LU, as of July 2006, there were still more than half 

a million 15-passenger vans on our roads. These vans are not 

equipped with the latest safety features. In fact, they are based on 

30-year-old technology and they are used by schools, daycare centers, churches, and our elderly, our athletes and our choirs. It is 

not enough to launch another education and awareness campaign. 

These messages work their way slowly to the public’s consciousness. Consider that NHTSA has already issued three consumer 

advisories warning the public about the dangers of 15-passenger 

vans, when Alexis died in one. 

My challenge to the industry is this: help send these older vans 

and very dangerous vehicles to the scrap yard. Fifteen-passenger 

vans are the only vehicles in our fleet that cannot be used safely 

as intended. The irony would be merely absurd if the consequences 

of it weren’t so tragic. Automakers should work to offer financial 

incentives to the community groups that need their vans, but lack 

the resources to replace them with safer transportation. 

As for the regulators, NHTSA and their overseers, the honorable 

members of Congress, we ask you to conduct a national survey on 

aged tires in 15-passenger vans and warn consumers about this 

fatal combination. Ultimately, we would like to see expiration dates 

clearly printed on the outside sidewalls of every passenger vehicle 

or the use of current technologies like radio frequency identification 

to ensure a quick and easy read of a tire’s age. 

32 

I urge you to get to work on a standard for a dynamic rollover 

occupant protection test. NHTSA is absolutely right to approach 

each rollover-related rulemaking as a part of a system. But the system is still missing a critical element: How will the driver and the 

passenger actually fare in a rollover? We need a standard that requires instrumented dummies to measure what happens to people 

in rollovers, not just metal and glass. 

What good is it to test one side of the roof with a metal plate 

if the front seat passenger’s head is going to be crushed in a crash 

along with the B-pillar? We need to know that the seat belts and 

whatever anchors them in a vehicle are going to withstand with 

impacts of a rollover, so that the 10-year-old girl in that seat belt 

is going to withstand it too. If we don’t seek the answers to these 

question, then what exactly are we accomplishing? 

Manufacturers have resisted a dynamic rollover testing standard 

for decades. It can’t be done, they say. And NHTSA has retreated. 

But if Ford can showcase its rollover testing to Congress in 1965, 

if GM can parade the $10 million rollover testing center two years 

ago for the television cameras, then it can be done. And instead of 

fighting a standard, it should be supporting it and offering the 

agency the benefits of their years of such testing. 

I know that protecting people in rollover crashes is a complex 

challenge, but Americans are actually good at solving complex 

problems. Sometimes I think we forget that. We are up to the challenge. It is time to do the right thing for Alexis, for all of us. 

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. James, thank you for your very touching 

testimony. We totally agree that there needs to be some additional 

focus on tire safety, and maybe that is one of the things the 

NHTSA could add to their checkpoints and check tire wear, especially on vans carrying youngsters, and maybe address it in that 

way. Thank you, sir. 

We move on to Ms. Laura Dean Mooney, President of Mothers 

Against Drunk Driving. Welcome. 

Ms. MOONEY. Madam Chair, Ranking Member Duncan, and 

members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to 

testify on the important topic of improving highway safety. 

Madam Chairman, I am pleased to report that progress has been 

made to reduce drunk driving, with a 44 percent reduction in alcohol-related fatalities since 1980 when MADD was founded. This reduction would not be possible without the hard work of law enforcement, prosecutors, NHTSA, State highway safety offices, and 

others. MADD thanks them as well as you and the members of this 

Committee for your leadership on this issue. This truly has been 

a team effort. 

For more than 16 years, I have worked as a volunteer to try and 

advance MADD’s mission at the local, State, and national levels. 

I became involved with MADD after my husband, Mike Dean, 

shown in this picture, aged 32, was killed in Texas by a drunk 

driver, leaving me to raise our eight-month-old daughter alone. 

Mike was killed on November 21st, 1991, when a drunk driver, 

going the wrong way on a Texas highway, met Mike’s car head-on, 

killing him instantly. 

33 

The offender, who also died at the crash scene, had a BAC of .34 

and was driving with an almost empty bottle of Jim Beam whiskey 

in the vehicle. 

The crash happened exactly one week before Thanksgiving. 

Madam Chairman, as you know, this must not be tolerated. In 

2006, there were 13,470 fatalities involving a drunk driver or a motorcycle operator with at least a .08 BAC, and nearly half a million 

injuries due to alcohol-related traffic crashes. This costs the United 

States an estimated $114.3 billion annually. The sad news is that 

while your efforts, along with those of MADD and other groups, 

have made drunk driving socially unacceptable, it is still tolerated. 

Statistics collected by NHTSA should frighten all of us. Californians share the road with 310,971 drivers with three or more DUI 

convictions, and 44,210 drivers with five or more DUI convictions. 

Arkansas is home to the single worst drunk driving offender in the 

Nation, with one individual accounting for 40 DUIs. 

In response to the ongoing tragedy of drunk driving, MADD 

launched the Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving on November 

20th, 2006 The Campaign consists of four parts: support for highvisibility intensive law enforcement; full implementation of current 

alcohol ignition interlock technologies for all first-time convicted 

drunk drivers; exploration of advanced vehicle technologies through 

the establishment of a Cooperative Research Agreement between 

NHTSA and leading automakers that is assessing the feasibility of 

a range of in-vehicle technologies intended to prevent drunk driving; mobilization of grassroots support led by MADD and its more 

than 400 affiliates and our partners to make the elimination of 

drunk driving a reality. 

Mr. Chairman, the time for widespread adoption by States of ignition interlock laws for all convicted drunk drivers has come. Anyone who violates the public trust 27 years after everyone knows the 

consequences has earned the right for an alcohol ignition interlock 

device to be installed on their car. Multiple studies on interlocks 

for both first-time and repeat offenders show a decrease in repeat 

offences up to 65 percent while the ignition interlock is on the car. 

The more exciting results, however, are that alcohol-involved 

crashes are down 30 percent, injuries are down 32 percent, and fatalities are down 22 percent as a result of New Mexico’s first offender program. Currently, only eight States have ignition interlocks for all first-time convicted drunk drivers. MADD uses the 

phrase ‘‘first time convicted’’ because the most conservative studies 

say that impaired drivers have actually driven drunk an average 

of 87 times before they are ever caught. 

MADD also respectfully asks Congress to consider supporting increased funding for the 402 program and law enforcement in the 

next traffic safety reauthorization bill. We also believe increased 

Federal funding is needed to help with the Cooperative Research 

Agreement between the automotive industry and the Federal Government to support those new technologies that may eventually 

prevent a vehicle from being started by a drunk driver. MADD does 

not support any mandates of this new technology, and we believe 

it is best pursued on a voluntary, market-driven basis over the next 

decade. 

34 

Mr. Chairman, in closing, we wish to bring another important 

issue to the Committee’s attention. There are some who continue 

to advocate lowering the drinking age back to 18. Data is unequivocal that the earlier youth drink, the more likely they are to become 

alcohol-dependent later in life and then drive drunk. Because of the 

21 minimum drinking age, 25,000 families somewhere will never 

know the tragedy of the call that comes at 2:00 a.m. or, in my case, 

7:15 p.m. that says their husband, son, daughter, or loved one is 

not coming home. I know this tragedy firsthand and I will work 

with MADD to continue the fight so that others will not experience 

my tragedy. 

Mr. Chairman, again, I thank you and would like to thank the 

members of the Committee for the opportunity to testify. MADD 

looks forward to working with you and this Committee as you look 

to improve highway safety on our Nation’s roadways. Thank you. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. [Presiding] Ms. Jill Ingrassia, Managing Director, 

Government Relations & Traffic Safety Advocacy, of the AAA, 

Washington, D.C. Ms. Ingrassia. 

Ms. INGRASSIA. Chairman DeFazio and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here today to share AAA’s 

perspective on roadway safety. 

As you may know, AAA is a federation of independent motor 

clubs in the United States and Canada, serving over 51 million 

members. Our members are prime users of the Nation’s transportation system; they are commuters, leisure travelers, pedestrians, 

and users of mass transit. So transportation plays a vital role in 

their lives. 

In the time I have today, I would like to reinforce three messages 

from the more detailed testimony that I submitted for the record. 

First is the importance of developing a new vision and purpose for 

the overall transportation program and engaging the public in the 

lead-up to this next bill; second is the challenge of changing behavior and creating a traffic safety culture; and, finally, I will mention 

a couple of key recommendations for improvement. 

As you prepare for the upcoming reauthorization of SAFETEALU, in addition to the challenges of actually writing a new bill, an 

added challenge will be getting the public’s buy-in regarding the 

importance of transportation and what needs to be done. We have 

found in recent surveys that the public knows we need transportation improvements, but they don’t believe current resources are 

being invested effectively and they are skeptical about paying 

more. 

If we fail to understand the amount of mistrust the public has 

in our ability to deliver recognizable transportation improvements 

and be good stewards of the motorists’ dollar, we will fail in reducing fatalities, fail in cutting commute times, and fail to grow our 

economy in ways that will keep us globally competitive. We simply 

won’t have the public support and the resulting political will we 

need to get the job done. 

Turning to safety, behavior change is arguably the greatest challenge we face in reducing the over 42,000 deaths and over 2 million 

injuries resulting from motor vehicle crashes each year. These figures should ring alarm bells nationwide for an urgent call to acVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:26 Jun 25, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\43655 JASON
35 

tion. Yet, our society seems to have come to accept this sort of 

death toll with motor vehicle crashes. This has to change. 

An important step is changing the way we view traffic crashes. 

They should be recognized as a public health threat and treated as 

such. That means rethinking how we communicate traffic safety, as 

well as increasing our focus on collaboration between government 

agencies, transportation and health professionals, communicators, 

law enforcement, and criminal justice professionals to name a few. 

A common theme in all of the traffic safety challenges outlined 

in my testimony is the need to communicate differently and develop new ways to affect behavior change. On many issues we have 

made progress on the traditional four Es: engineering, education, 

enforcement, and emergency services. We believe it is time to add 

four Cs: communication, coordination, collaboration, and culture. I 

mention culture because it seems the public is not getting the message about the impact of motor vehicle crashes. They are not 

changing behavior or demanding urgent action from elected officials. 

To that end, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has initiated 

a long-term research project to assess and hopefully, eventually, 

transform the traffic safety culture in this Country. To give you a 

sense of the challenge, our recent AAA Foundation survey of public 

attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs on traffic safety found that, to a 

large degree, Americans practice a ‘‘do as I say, not as I do’’ approach. They certainly agree that engaging in distracted behavior 

while driving is dangerous; yet, they admit to doing it, and they 

firmly believe the driver of the other vehicle is the real source of 

the problem. 

Speeding, aggressive, impaired, and distracted driving, seat belt 

use and pedestrian/cyclist safety are just some of the issues that 

can benefit from an improved traffic safety culture. My written testimony includes perspectives on some of these issues, along with a 

focus on teen drivers, child passenger safety, and senior mobility. 

I would like to finish by just briefly highlighting a couple of our 

recommendations for your consideration as you evaluate existing 

programs and look for new opportunities to improve transportation 

safety. 

The first is data. We need to increase focus on results and 

metrics in order to properly evaluate current safety programs so 

that we invest in projects and programs that are truly having an 

impact. Data systems must be improved and money should be provided for necessary upgrades. Developing a common definition for 

serious injuries should also be a priority. Collecting data on deaths 

and serious injuries would provide a more robust metric and afford 

greater statistical validity of any analyses done. 

The second is accountability. In order to move to a performancedriven outcome-based system, new performance metrics are needed. 

As you have already heard, NHTSA and GHSA are working to develop comprehensive performance metrics for safety programs, and 

we support this effort. Uniform performance standards will reveal 

to each State what its own data collection needs are and will help 

each State evaluate its current safety programs. 

With respect to strategic highway safety plans, AAA encourages 

Congress to strengthen the requirement for States to develop colVerDate Aug 31 2005 19:26 Jun 25, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\43655 JASON
36 

laborative strategic highway safety plans that are based on data. 

There should be oversight and evaluation to ensure the programs 

are actually accomplishing the defined goals, as well as requirements to update them. It is important that NHTSA and State highway safety offices be actively engaged in the development and evaluation of these plans. 

In conclusion, AAA recognizes that the challenges before you are 

not easy. Making significant strides in safety will likely involve 

more than incremental improvements and providing a bit more 

money to carry on business as usual. We look forward to working 

with you on the important task of improving transportation safety 

in the next reauthorization bill. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I look forward to answering any questions you may have. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you. 

Ms. Jacqueline S. Gillan, Vice President, Advocates for Highway 

and Auto Safety. Ms. Gillan. 

Ms. GILLAN. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name is Jacqueline Gillan and I am Vice President of Advocates for Highway 

and Auto Safety, and I appreciate the opportunity to testify this 

morning on such an important topic. 

During the SAFETEA-LU authorization time frame, it is expected that more than 200,000 people will die on our highways and 

nearly 13 million more will be injured. This will occur despite the 

largest surface transportation investment in our Nation’s history. 

The number of highway deaths and injuries have essentially flatlined. In recent years, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been unable to meet a number of its announced safety 

performance goals for reducing deaths and injuries. Instead of 

changing their plans and programs to meet the challenge, the 

agency simply moves the goalpost. 

As this Subcommittee begins deliberations on the next reauthorization bill, let me briefly recommend some of the key areas where 

real safety gains can be achieved. 

First, there is an urgent need for a primary enforcement seat 

belt law in every State. Today, only 26 States and D.C. have this 

law. Primary enforcement seat belt laws save lives and result in 

higher usage rates. SAFETEA-LU provided more than $500 million 

in incentive grant money to encourage States to pass primary enforcement seat belt laws. In 2006, three States acted. In 2007, only 

Maine passed a law. And in 2008, we do not expect a single State 

to adopt a primary enforcement seat belt law. At this glacial pace, 

it could be 2032 or later before every State has this essential law. 

In the area of impaired driving, we are not making sufficient 

progress. Many States still don’t have some of the most fundamental and basic impaired driving laws. Additionally, we need to 

expand the use of technology to prevent impaired driving. Advocates strongly supports and is working with MADD to promote 

adoption of mandatory interlock laws for first-time offenders in 

every State. 

One of the major factors contributing to overall highway fatalities is the dramatic increase in motorcycle deaths in the last 10 

years. Since 1997, motorcycle deaths have more than doubled. Helmet use is the most effective measure to protect motorcyclists in a 

37 

crash from death and disabling brain injury. However, while motorcycle deaths are climbing, lifesaving all-rider helmet laws are 

under attack in State legislatures. In fact, more State legislatures 

considered repealing their laws than enacting them. 

The increase in teen drivers on our roads is also a safety problem 

with a sensible solution. In 2006, about 8,000 deaths involved 

young drivers. Graduated driver licensing or GDL programs introduce teens to driving by phasing in driving privileges over time and 

in less risky situations. While many States have a few of the essential components of an optimal GDL law, only Delaware has all five 

recommended by Advocates. As a result, there is a patchwork quilt 

of teen driving laws across the Nation similar to the blood borders 

that existed in the 1970s and 1980s when States had different minimum drinking ages for alcohol. 

Congress solved that problem with enactment of the 21 drinking 

age sponsored by the late Chairman of this Committee, Representative Jim Howard. This law gave States three years to adopt a uniform drinking law or be penalized Federal aid highway funds. As 

a result, every State complied. No State lost a single dollar of highway funds, and over 25,000 lives have been saved; a remarkable 

achievement. It is now time for Congress to step in to protect every 

teen in every State through the uniform adoption of optimal GDL 

laws. 

There is also a pressing need to address the rapidly increasing 

population of older drivers. NHTSA estimates that by the year 

2030 there will be 71 million drivers over 65 years old. Not enough 

attention is being given to adopting countermeasures in our highway and vehicle safety designs for older drivers in anticipation of 

this. 

Now let me briefly turn to the issue of speed. In 2006, speed was 

a factor in about a third of all traffic fatalities. Congress may have 

repealed the national maximum speed limit in 1995, but it did not 

repeal the law of physics. It is important to note a 1984 study 

where the National Academy of Sciences documented that the 

speed limit lowered both the lives lost and also conserved fuel. Conditions may once again be ripe for Congress to consider a new 

version of the national speed limit law. One bill has already been 

introduced in the House and Advocates supports the reconsideration of a national speed limit as a policy option in order to save 

lives and protect our Nation. 

In conclusion, many of the safety priorities outlined in Advocates’ 

testimony today can be realized by expending minimal Federal dollars while achieving maximum gains in saving lives and preventing 

deadly injuries. There are really no acceptable excuses for delaying 

any longer the adoption of proven safety measures that will significantly reduce our Nation’s death and injury toll, and we look forward to working with you during the consideration of reauthorization. 

Again, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, thank 

you for the opportunity to testify. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you. 

The Honorable Bob Letourneau, State Senator, New Hampshire. 

Mr. Letourneau. 

38 

Mr. LETOURNEAU. Good afternoon, Chairman DeFazio and Mr. 

Boozman, members of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee. 

Thank you for inviting me here today to testify on behalf of American Motorcyclists. 

For the record, my name is Senator Bob Letourneau, and I am 

here representing Motorcycle Riders Foundation, which is a coalition of States riders motorcycle rights organization and individual 

members representing about 275,000 motorcyclists. I also serve as 

the Chairman of the New Hampshire Senate Transportation Committee and a am a member of the State Motorcycle Advisory Committee. In addition to that, I am a member of the Governors Motorcycle Safety Task Force of the New Hampshire Highway Safety 

Agency, and I have been a motorcycle rider for 41 years. 

I want to thank Chairman DeFazio for his wisdom to hold this 

motorcycle safety hearing on National Ride to Work Day. 

With reference to the 2010 funds, I appreciate the opportunity to 

provide your Subcommittee with some thoughts that the MRF has 

on highway safety programs administered by NHTSA. We hope 

that the next reauthorization not only keeps Federal section 2010 

funds as a priority and expand this program exponentially. 

Consider this: Under the current SAFETEA-LU law, the Federal 

Government spends about $1.00 per motorcyclist per year. Then 

ask yourself, do you think that is enough? I want to give you some 

personal perspective as my experience as a member of the Motorcycle Safety Task Force of New Hampshire, whose responsibility it 

is to use these funds, is very positive. 

We have been able to purchase new training bikes for our fleet, 

opening up new training possibilities for riders. We were able to 

purchase 220 new helmets to replace the current helmets, most of 

which were 18 years old. Additionally, we were able to provide the 

MSF Intersections training video to all our driver training schools, 

providing valuable education to our new drivers about the issues 

that motorcyclists face on the road daily. This was possible because 

of 2010 grants; your tax dollars truly at work. 

In reference to accident prevention, past legislation that this 

Committee has crafted included language that specifically directs 

NHTSA to focus on accident prevention over occupation protection 

when addressing motorcycle safety. Accident prevention saves societal costs, reduces injuries, and reduces property damage. We ask 

that you continue to promote outcome-based accident prevention 

solutions. 

Again, from my personal perspective, on July 5th, 2008, putting 

my money where my mouth is, I took and passed the advanced 

Skilled Rider Course because I know it saves lives, and, yes, I did 

learn that I have rider skills that I was not using properly. However, more importantly, when people ask me if I have taken the 

course, I can answer yes, and it works. 

HOV lanes. When considering future highway design, it is important to include motorcyclists on HOV lane access, as this Committee has done in the past. For that, 6 million American motorcyclists thank Congress. 

Motorcycle Advisory Council. Also included in SAFETEA-LU was 

language that created an advisory council to provide the wisdom to 

the Secretary of Transportation on motorcycles and the design of 

39 

the highway infrastructure. I am pleased to tell you the initial twoyear charter passed by Congress has been so successful that the 

Secretary recently decided to extend the Council for another two 

years. 

Another personal note. In light of increased motorcycle fatal accidents during the 2005 riding season, Representative Packard, who 

was the Chair at the time of the House Transportation Committee, 

and myself, as Chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, 

requested that the Governors Highway Safety agency form a task 

force to come up with solutions to this increasing problem. You will 

see from the document that I have provided the Committee that in 

light of augmented motorcycle registrations, we were able to find 

ways to decrease the fatality problem through awareness, improved 

rider education programs, and new legislation, which both Representative Packard and myself introduced and passed. 

Green vehicles. We ask Congress to promote motorcycling as a 

means of reducing energy consumption and reducing traffic congestion. 

International efforts. Last month, the MRF participated in a 

meeting held by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and 

Development and its 30 member countries in conjunction with the 

International Transit Forum and Joint Transportation Research 

Centre in Lillehammer, Norway to develop a global list of the top 

20 motorcycle safety priorities. You have our list of that, and priorities one, three, and four all stress proper riding training. Priorities 

six and seven emphasize awareness programs. Two areas that the 

American motorcycle rights community has been promoting for decades. 

And last but not least, rising fatalities. According to the June 

2008 survey of State motorcycle safety programs by the Governors 

Highway Safety Association, motorcycle registrations have more 

than doubled since 1997 and new motorcycle sales have quadrupled 

since then. Surely, when the population is increased, one must expect the crash numbers to climb as well. It is simple statistics. 

The same report stated that this explosion of motorcycle sales 

from 356,000 in 1997 to 1.1 million today is crippling the rider education programs across the Country. Twenty-nine States and D.C. 

have capacity problems and often have wait times for training for 

more than 12 weeks. This is another reason why Congress needs 

to invest more money in motorcycle rider education through Section 

2010 grants. 

One last personal observation, in New Hampshire, during our 

first 15 years of our motorcycle education program, we trained over 

23,000 riders. Only one of those 23,000 riders was involved in a fatality. Education is the key to successfully reducing motorcycle fatalities, and our experience is proof positive. 

On behalf of the MRF and the American motorcyclists, I thank 

you for this opportunity to present our concerns and views to you 

in considering safety issues in the development of the National 

Transportation System, and I welcome any questions from the 

Committee. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you. 

I will turn first to Mr. Boozman who wants to recognize a couple 

of witnesses and has a quick question. We are going to try and 

40 

move quickly through questions because we won’t have time to 

come back. 

Go ahead. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. In the interest of time, Mr. Chairman, we would 

like to submit some questions potentially, but I want to thank Mr. 

James and Ms. Mooney for coming and giving your testimony. It 

is very difficult, and yet it really is very helpful to hear personal 

stories. 

My wife was in an accident a month or so ago, and my daughter. 

It was a very complicated intersection. She broke several ribs, had 

a collapsed lung and stuff, but it was really the Lord taking care 

of her in the sense that she could have been injured much, much 

worse. 

So this is something that we are all very, very aware of, and we 

really do appreciate your advocacy, and it really does make a big 

difference. Thank you to all the panelists. We appreciate your being 

here. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you and I likewise met with Mr. James last 

fall in my office and Ms. Mooney. Sometimes maybe in our lives the 

only we can make sense out of horrible tragedies is to try and prevent that from happening to other people, and we appreciate what 

you are doing there. 

A couple of quick questions, Mr. James. How would you envision 

a national system for endorsement on driving 15-passenger vans? 

Have you kind of thought how we would establish the standards? 

I mean, generally, we have left that issue to the States to some 

extent, although are some Federal standards about commercial 

truck drivers, for instance. 

Mr. JAMES. Very similar, like motorcycles, there, you have to 

have an endorsement to drive a motorcycle. If we do this, it will 

be the awareness that there is 500,000 of these vans without even 

the latest technology on the road, that everybody agrees that have 

rollover, very high rollover risk. 

We have been using the motorcycle endorsement as our example 

that we would like to see. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. So, essentially, we would just set a national objective, perhaps provide some small amount of funds in the next authorization to the States and say, you have to develop a system to 

certify the people. We wouldn’t try and have it as a Federal standard or license but just leave that up to the States to determine 

what additional training or testing would be necessary. 

Mr. JAMES. Correct. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Okay. All right. Thank you. 

Ms. Mooney, I have a question. I don’t understand about the $60 

to $80 a month to monitor the interlock. Why does it cost that? 

Ms. MOONEY. Well, the offender has to pay all the costs, the initial cost to acquire the interlock device, about $150 to $200. Sixty 

dollars a month is to maintain the device. They actually have to 

drive back to the facility where it was installed and have it calibrated and dump the data that it has collected. So that is where 

the cost comes in. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Isn’t technology moving? I mean where we have 

technology, we can monitor prisoners remotely with ankle bracelets. It just seems to me like a high recurring cost. I mean is there 

41 

a technology breakthrough coming where we can remotely monitor 

these devices and not have to bring them in? 

Do they have problems with failure or why do they have to be 

recalibrated so frequently, monthly, it seems? 

Ms. MOONEY. Well, I guess we would have to have an ignition 

interlock provider that knows the technology a little more exactly 

than I do. 

But our feeling is $60 to $80 is not very much really, a month, 

when you think about that is the cost of one drink a day. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. No. I understand that, but it just kind of stuck out 

to me. I am thinking put the devices in and make it so they can’t 

circumvent them, but I was just wondering about the recurring cost 

with it. In many cases, it is probably going to be borne by taxpayers since a lot of the people may not have the wherewithal to 

pay that. 

Ms. MOONEY. I was just reminded it also prevents the tampering 

too if they go in and see that it is actually still installed in the car, 

and they are able to check it for various things. That is my understanding, limited understanding of that. 

I think an interlock provider would be able. I would be happy to 

get that information and get that to you. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Yes. No. I mean I think the devices are an excellent way to prevent reoccurrence. 

Now why so few States have adopted it for first time offenders? 

Why? What is the resistance you are sensing or hearing? 

Ms. MOONEY. Perhaps it is mostly education, educating State legislators about exactly what an interlock device is and what the purpose of it is. Even law enforcement officers, judges don’t know very 

much about them from my personal experience in visiting with 

those types of folks. 

Once they see it, they usually get it. They usually understand 

this is something that is really effective. It is going to allow the offender to keep going to their job and drive their kids to school. 

They simply can’t drive drunk. 

Primarily education and having them understand what it does. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Okay. Anybody else want to comment on interlocks? 

All right. I will see if other members have questions because we 

don’t have much time. I don’t know who was here first. 

Mr. Brown? 

Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I really do appreciate the witnesses coming and giving their testimony. 

I was just going to ask one question, maybe make a comment to 

the Senator, Mr. Letourneau. 

I know that in South Carolina, we just passed a bill where when 

you come to a traffic light on a motorcycle and it doesn’t trip the 

mechanism. So the State Legislature actually now allowed the motorcycle to proceed across the red light if there is nobody coming. 

I just wondered if that has been an initiative for you all. 

Mr. LETOURNEAU. I did see that legislation, and there is an issue 

with some traffic lights. I know as a rider I have run into that 

problem myself. I am just a little leery of going through any red 

lights. On a motorcycle, you don’t have much protection. 

42 

Mr. BROWN. Well, you certainly drive at your own risk, and yet 

you can tell whether the traffic is coming or going or not. I know 

that we had a lot of folks that were just waiting at the traffic light 

for a car to come up, so they could trigger it to get access to the 

change of the light. 

But I didn’t know, since you rode motorcycles, whether that 

would be of any interest to you or not. 

Anyway, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know we have votes on the 

floor, and I will yield back. 

Mr. LETOURNEAU. Thank you. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Mr. Poe. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have some written questions I am going to have you answer, 

hopefully. But, Mr. James and Ms. Dean Mooney, thank you for especially your testimony. 

My grandfather was killed by a drunk driver when he was working with the Texas Highway Department, laying asphalt on now 

Interstate 35. Then my eight year old, when Kim was eight, was 

hit by a drunk driver riding her bicycle home from school and 

never rode a bicycle again, even to this day. 

Specifically, Ms. Dean Mooney, I want to thank you and MADD 

for what you have done. There are thousands of people today who 

are alive because of MADD, thousands. You have done a wonderful 

job in the last 20 years. We cannot forget that. 

I want to question you about interlock devices. I used them as 

a judge. It is the law in States, but judges don’t follow the law. 

They don’t enforce the law and require interlock devices, and so I 

have two questions for you. You can submit an answer in writing. 

Do you think that if we required that first time offenders have 

an interlock device, of drinking and driving, and some stipend to 

States that enforced that, if that would help? 

Second, what do you think about repeat offenders, the judge ordering the confiscation of the license and registration of the vehicle, 

the license plate and the registration of the vehicle for a period of 

time, if that would help in solving this problem or not? 

So those are my questions. I would like some written answers. 

Mr. Chairman, I will yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you. I would also be interested in the answers to those questions because I think particularly on the first 

one, maybe the Feds need to provide a little more direction on the 

first time offenders particularly States. I think you suggested 0.08. 

Ms. MOONEY. Thank you, Judge Poe. We will make sure we get 

those to the Committee. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, there are some votes coming up, but if you have 

a couple of questions that would be great. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. Well, thank you. 

I thank this panel very much for your testimony. I had to be out 

of the room while you were delivering, but I did read through your 

submissions prior to the hearing. 

I want to join with Mr. Poe in complimenting MADD for their 

service to the public. He put it very well. People are alive today because of the work of MADD, and we need to pursue those goals, 

43 

those initiatives that MADD and all the other members of this 

panel have advocated and raise our standard and save more lives. 

I said it, Mr. Chairman, before the previous panel, while you 

were at the aviation issue, that the European community has reduced fatalities from 53,000 a year to 43,000 in 5 years. We ought 

to be able to do as well in the United States through a combination 

of initiatives that the European community has undertaken. 

Certainly with half of our fatalities associated with alcohol, we 

ought to attack behavior. 

We have done a good job, I believe, in this Country of changing 

the traveled way, removing tank traps such as those huge concrete 

posts for lights, highway lighting systems. You would drive into it, 

and the driver and passenger are killed. We now have breakaway 

light poles. 

The Jersey barriers, instead of running into a concrete wall or 

running through something and going into the opposite traveled 

way and killing more people, we have the Jersey barrier. 

We have the bridge piers that are angled away from the traveled 

road surface itself so that people aren’t driving into those. 

The guard rails that are now angled into the ground, before that 

work was done, our Committee found that drivers crashed into the 

end of the guard rail which would slide over the hood of the car 

and decapitate driver and passenger. 

But we haven’t done as well—we haven’t done as well—on the 

behavioral side, on the passenger side, which is why I questioned 

the previous panel on national driver register. We need to get bad 

drivers off the highways. We need to keep people who are impaired, 

not handicapped but impaired by alcohol or drugs, off the traveled 

roadway. 

I know you addressed this previously, Ms. Ingrassia, Ms. Gillan. 

We had quite a debate in the previous transportation bill as well 

as in TEA-21 over whether incentives for States to comply with 

0.08 or penalties for noncompliance were better. What is your experience? 

We wound up with incentives. You get a bonus to the State if 

they establish that and for seatbelt compliance. 

Ms. GILLAN. Mr. Chairman, there is no question that sanctions 

work and that incentive grants without sanctions are not as effective. 

In my testimony, I talked about the primary seatbelt incentive 

grant program. Only three States passed a primary enforcement 

seatbelt law in 2006. Maine did it last year. There will be no State 

this year that will pass a primary enforcement safety belt bill. 

When we look at the 21 drinking age, when we had blood borders 

and the former Chairman Jim Howard passed that legislation, all 

States within 3 years had a 21 drinking age, no State lost a single 

dollar, and 25,000 lives have been saved. 

It worked on 0.08. It worked on zero tolerance BAC laws for 

youth, and that is the approach we should consider in the next bill 

when we look at the lack of some of the most fundamental safety 

laws in the States such as primary enforcement, motorcycle helmets, teen driving laws. 

Advocates is not ashamed to say that the research shows that 

sanctions work and that that is an approach this Committee has 

44 

to look at if we ever want to make a significant drop in the number 

of deaths and injuries on our highways. 

Mr. OBERSTAR. That was my view in the previous Congress. I see 

time has expired on the vote on the House floor. 

I have to run. I know other members have their questions. 

Mr. James, I know you have had a very personal, searing experience, and I sympathize with you, offer my heartfelt prayers and 

solidarity with you in your experience. 

I am so appreciative of all the work that MADD has done, that 

the Advocates have done. 

You heard our hearing previously on big trucks and small cars. 

We are going to do a much bigger job, a much better job, a much 

more intensive focus on highway safety in the next transportation 

bill. I assure you that. 

Thank you very much for your participation. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. The Committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:00 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

45 


43655.010
46 


43655.011
47 


43655.012
48 


43655.013
49 


43655.014
50 


43655.015
51 


43655.016
52 


43655.017
53 


43655.018
54 


43655.019
55 


43655.020
56 


43655.021
57 


43655.022
58 


43655.023
59 


43655.024
60 


43655.025
61 


43655.026
62 


43655.027
63 


43655.028
64 


43655.029
65 


43655.030
66 


43655.031
67 


43655.032
68 


43655.033
69 


43655.034
70 


43655.035
71 


43655.036
72 


43655.037
73 


43655.038
74 


43655.039
75 


43655.040
76 


43655.041
77 


43655.042
78 


43655.043
79 


43655.044
80 


43655.045
81 


43655.046
82 


43655.047
83 


43655.048
84 


43655.049
85 


43655.050
86 


43655.051
87 


43655.052
88 


43655.053
89 


43655.054
90 


43655.055
91 


43655.056
92 


43655.057
93 


43655.058
94 


43655.059
95 


43655.060
96 


43655.061
97 


43655.062
98 


43655.063
99 


43655.064
100 


43655.065
101 


43655.066
102 


43655.067
103 


43655.068
104 


43655.069
105 


43655.070
106 


43655.071
107 


43655.072
108 


43655.073
109 


43655.074
110 


43655.075
111 


43655.076
112 


43655.077
113 


43655.078
114 


43655.079
115 


43655.080
116 


43655.081
117 


43655.082
118 


43655.083
119 


43655.084
120 


43655.085
121 


43655.086
122 


43655.087
123 


43655.088
124 


43655.089
125 


43655.090
126 


43655.091
127 


43655.092
128 


43655.093
129 


43655.094
130 


43655.095
131 


43655.096
132 


43655.097
133 


43655.098
134 


43655.099
135 


43655.100
136 


43655.101
137 


43655.102
138 


43655.103
139 


43655.104
140 


43655.105
141 


43655.106
142 


43655.107
143 


43655.108
144 


43655.109
145 


43655.110
146 


43655.111
147 


43655.112
148 


43655.113
149 


43655.114
150 


43655.115
151 


43655.116
152 


43655.117
153 


43655.118
154 


43655.119
155 


43655.120
156 


43655.121
157 


43655.122
158 


43655.123
159 


43655.124
160 


43655.125
161 


43655.126
162 


43655.127
163 


43655.128
164 


43655.129
165 


43655.130
166 


43655.131
167 


43655.132
168 


43655.133
169 


43655.134
170 


43655.135
171 


43655.136
172 


43655.137
173 


43655.138
174 


43655.139
175 


43655.140
176 


43655.141
177 

Æ 


43655.142