EXCERPT FROM HIGHWAY SAFETY ACT OF 1966
AN ACT - To provide for a coordinated national highway safety program through financial assistance to the States to accelerate highway traffic safety programs and for other purposes.
Title 23. United States Codes, is hereby amended by adding at the end thereof a new chapter:
CHAPTER 4 - HIGHWAY SAFETY
Section
401. Authority of the Secretary.
402. Highway safety program.
403. Highway safety research and development.
404. National Highway Safety Advisory Committee.
§401 Authority of the Secretary
The Secretary is authorized and directed to assist and cooperate with other Federal departments and agencies, State and local governments, private industry, and other interested parties, to increase highway safety.
§402 Highway Safety Programs
(a) Each State shall have a highway safety program approved by the Secretary, designed to reduce traffic accidents and deaths, injuries, and property damage resulting therefrom. Such programs shall be in accordance with uniform standards promulgated by the Secretary. Such uniform standards shall be expressed in terms of performance criteria. Such uniform standards shall be promulgated by the Secretary so as to improve driver performance (including, but not limited to, driver education, driver testing to determine proficiency to operate motor vehicles, driver examinations both physical and mental) and driver licensing, and to improve pedestrian performance. In addition such uniform standards shall include, but not be limited to, provisions for an effective record system of accidents (including injuries and deaths resulting therefrom), accident investigations to determine the probable causes of accidents, injuries, and deaths, vehicle registration, operation, and inspection, highway design and maintenance (including lighting markings and surface treatment), traffic control, vehicle codes and laws, surveillance of traffic for detection and correction of high or potentially high accident locations, and emergency services. Such standards as are applicable to State highway safety programs shall to the extent determined appropriate by the Secretary be applicable to federally administered areas where a Federal department or agency controls the highways or supervises traffic operations. The Secretary shall be authorized to amend or waive standards on a temporary basis for the purpose of evaluating new or different highway safety programs instituted on an experimental, pilot, or demonstration basis by one or more States where the Secretary finds that the public interest would be served by such amendment or waiver.
(b) (1) The Secretary shall not approve any State highway safety program under this section which does not:
(A) provide that the Governor of the State shall be responsible for the administration of the program.
(B) authorize political subdivisions of such State to carry out local highway safety programs within their jurisdictions as a part of the State highway safety program if such local highway safety programs are approved by the Governor and are in accordance with the uniform standards of the Secretary promulgated under this section.
(C) provide that at least 40 per centum of all Federal funds apportioned under this section to such State for any fiscal year will be expended by the political subdivisions of such State in carrying out local highway safety programs authorized in accordance subparagraph (B) of this paragraph.
(D) provide that the aggregate expenditure of funds the State and political subdivisions thereof, exclusive of Federal funds, for highway safety programs will be maintained at a level which does not fall below the average level of such expenditures for its last two full years preceding the date of enactment of this section.
(E) provide for comprehensive driver training programs including (1) the initiation of a State program for driver education in the school system or for a, significant expansion and improvement of such a program already in existence, to be administered by appropriate school officials under the supervision of the Governor as set forth in subparagraph (A) of this paragraph: (2) the training of qualified school instructors and their certification: (3) appropriate regulation of other driver training schools, including licensing of the schools and certification of their instructors: (4) adult driver training programs, and programs for the retraining of selected drivers: and (5) adequate research, development and procurement of practice driving facilities, simulators, and other similar teaching aids for both school and other driver training use.
II (2) The Secretary is authorized to waive the requirement of subparagraph (C) of paragraph (1) of this subsection, in whole or in part, for a fiscal year for any State whenever he determines that there is an insufficient number of local highway safety programs to justify the expenditure in such State of such percentage of Federal funds during such fiscal year.
(c) Funds authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section shall be used to aid the States to conduct the highway safety programs approved in accordance with subsection (a), shall be subject to a deduction not to exceed 5 per centum for the necessary costs of administering the provisions of this section, and the remainder shall be apportioned among the several States. For the fiscal years ending June 30, 1967, June 30, 1968 and June 30, 1969, such funds shall be apportioned 75 per centum on the basis of population and 25 per centum as the Secretary in his administrative discretion may deem appropriate and thereafter such funds shall be apportioned as Congress, by law enacted hereafter, shall provide. On or before January 1, 1969, the Secretary shall report to Congress his recommendations with respect to a nondiscretionary formula for apportionment of funds authorized to carry out this section for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1970, and fiscal years thereafter. After December 31, 1968, the Secretary shall not apportion any funds under this subsection to any State which is not implementing a highway safety program approved by the Secretary in accordance with this section. Federal aid highway funds apportioned on or after January 1, 1969, to any State which is not implementing a highway safety program approved by the Secretary in accordance with this section shall be reduced by amounts equal to 10 per centum of the amounts which would otherwise be apportioned to such State under Section 104 of this title, until such time as such State is implementing an approved highway safety program. Whenever he determines it to be in the public interest, the Secretary may suspend, for such periods as he deems necessary, the application of the preceding sentence to a State. Any amount which is withheld from apportionment to any State under this section shall be reapportioned to the other States in accordance with the applicable provisions of law.
(d) All provisions of chapter I of this title that are applicable to Federal-aid primary highway funds other than provisions relating to the apportionment formula and provisions limiting the expenditure of such funds to the Federal-aid systems, shall apply to the highway safety funds authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section except as determined by the Secretary to be inconsistent with this section. In applying such provisions of chapter I in carrying out this section, the term 'State highway department' as used in such provisions shall mean the Governor of a State for the purposes of this section.
(e) Uniform standards promulgated by the Secretary to carry out this section shall be developed in cooperation with the States, their political subdivisions, appropriate Federal departments and agencies, and such other public and private organizations as the Secretary deems appropriate.
(f) The Secretary may make arrangements with other Federal departments and agencies for assistance in the preparation of uniform standards for the highway safety programs contemplated by subsection (a) and in the administration of programs. Such departments and agencies are directed to cooperate in such preparation and administration, on a reimbursable basis.
(g) Nothing in this section authorizes the appropriation of expenditure of funds for (1) highway, construction, maintenance, or design other than design of safety features of highways to be incorporated into standards or (2) any purpose for which funds are authorized by section 403 of this title.
§403 Highway Safety Research and Development
The Secretary is authorized to use funds appropriated to carry out this section to carry out safety research which he is authorized to conduct by subsection (a) of section 307 of this title. In addition, the Secretary may use the funds appropriated to carry out this section, either independently or in cooperation with other Federal departments or agencies, for (1) grants to State or local agencies, institutions and individuals for training or education of highway safety personnel, (2) research fellowships in highway safety, (3) development of, improved accident investigation procedures, (4) emergency service plans, (5) demonstration projects, and (6) related activities which are deemed by the Secretary to be necessary to carry out the purposes of this section.
