SAFETEA-LU REAUTHORIZATION

Submitted by: Highway Safety Committee HSC.011.a08

WHEREAS, the 111th Congress will be considering reauthorization of SAFETEA-LU that determines multi-year funding of highway safety and construction programs; and

WHEREAS, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, traffic crashes remained in 2005 the leading cause of death for every age three through six and eight through 34, and the economic cost of crashes in the United States is approximately $230.6 billion in 2000 dollars; and

WHEREAS, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) desires to work closely with the U.S. Department of Transportation and Congress to ensure that the reauthorization legislation provides sufficient funding to address the human factors that are the leading cause of traffic fatalities, injuries, and property damage; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED that the IACP duly assembled at its 115th Annual Conference in San Diego, California calls upon Congress, regarding the SAFETEAU-LU Reauthorization, to:

• To continue providing incentive grants to states enacting progressive highway safety legislation and to jurisdictions demonstrating positive reductions in deaths and injuries from traffic crashes;
• To provide funding, through National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) grants, to ensure the availability of driving simulators and other training programs to enhance the training of emergency vehicle operators police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians and to reduce thereby the growing number of crashes involving emergency vehicles;
• To require the involvement of traffic incident management stakeholders during the pre-design phase of new highway construction and reconstruction projects to ensure design standards meet law enforcement needs, such as those for shoulder or pull-off areas;
• To provide additional funding for communications interoperability among first responders police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians and department of transportation (DOT) vehicles and personnel;
• To increase funding that encourages holistic speed management approaches to include public policy, engineering/realistic speed limits, and strict and effective enforcement both by law enforcement and by the judiciary;
• To provide funding that encourages the increased use of ignition interlocks and of other technologies to combat impaired drivers;
• To continue research and development of pursuit termination technologies and to expedite their availability;
• To allow greater flexibility to address holistic needs problem identification- and performance-driven approaches to grant funding;
• To provide additional emphasis on real-time data collection and data-driven intelligent traffic policing;
• To place law enforcement and other agencies on equal footing with state DOTs in planning, developing, and implementing each state DOTs in planning, developing, and implementing each state Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP),to ensure the ultimate SHSP is representative of the needs of the entire jurisdiction; and
• To require every state DOT to allocate not less than one percent of the state Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) funding to law