Statement from the Administrator

Index | Statement from the Administrator | Overview | Performance Goals | Miscellaneous

This Administration is committed to supporting a performance-based budget that is results-oriented, citizen-centered and market-based. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) FY 2005 budget request of $689 million will permit the agency to continue a balanced program of human factor and vehicle safety initiatives to reduce the numbers of highway-related fatalities and injuries and associated traffic-related health care and other economic costs to our citizens. NHTSA's FY 2005 Budget Request links resources, performance, and outcomes to more effectively support the Secretary's Highway Safety Goal of no more than 1.0 fatality per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by 2008. The budget also continues to assure that significant progress is made in meeting the five major elements of the President's Management Agenda. Every year, deaths and injuries occur on our Nation's roadways, most of which are preventable. In 2002, of the 6.3 million police-reported crashes, 38,309 were fatal crashes, with 42,815 fatalities and over 2.9 million injuries. Unnecessary risk-taking behavior continued, as 59 percent of the fatalities in 2002 were unbelted. Motorcycle related fatalities increased for the fifth consecutive year, with 48 percent of the fatalities occurring to riders who were not wearing helmets. In 2002, 10,666 people died in rollover crashes, up 5 percent from 2001.

The economic burden on the United States is $231 billion (year 2000 dollars) annually, or 2.3 percent of the United States gross domestic product, including $21 billion from Federal, State, and local revenues ($200 of taxes from each American household). This figure includes approximately $32 billion for medical expenses and $59 billion in property damage. Although the financial costs are massive, the on-going pain, disability, and broken families arising from these crashes are even more devastating and cannot be measured in monetary terms.

This performance-based budget is presented around three strategic safety goals: Behavioral Safety, Vehicle Safety, and Environmental Stewardship.

In the area of Behavioral Safety , our primary focus is studying and changing risk taking behaviors on the roadways. Among the two worst are not using safety belts and engaging in impaired driving. We are pleased to report that in 2003, the Nation set a major landmark in traffic safety history when the safety belt use rate increased to 79 percent, up by four percentage points from the previous year. This translates to over 14,000 lives saved by safety belt use in 2003, and 1,080 more than in 2002. Yet, even with this unprecedented success, preventable roadway-related deaths are still mounting. Approximately 59 percent of the reported fatalities in 2002 were not using safety belts. In addition, the Nation still faces the scourge of impaired drivers. In 2002, 41 percent of fatal crashes were alcohol-related. This amounts to 48 alcohol-related highway fatalities per day, costing the Nation over $50 billion in economic costs.

We know what works to reduce this trend — the passage and enforcement of strong safety belt and impaired driving laws. We estimate that an additional 1,400 lives can be saved next year if the 30 remaining States pass and enforce primary safety belt laws. In addition, keeping an on-going safety message before the public through paid media exposure has been proven to have a positive effect on increasing public awareness of the consequences of not buckling up and of driving while impaired. Therefore, NHTSA's FY 2005 Budget Request continues our commitment to the highly successful, national paid media campaigns, based on the Click It or Ticket and You Drink. You Drive. You Lose. campaigns.

In the area of Vehicle Safety , we are more determined than ever to assure that vehicles on our roadways meet the highest safety standards. Both the prevention of crashes from occurring and maximizing occupant safety when crashes do occur are essential elements in saving lives and preventing injuries. To that end, NHTSA's FY 2005 Budget Request includes a new crash avoidance initiative to analyze changing technologies that are intended to make vehicles safer to drive through enhanced crash avoidance capability. This effort will include both identifying safety problems and projecting safety contributions of new technologies, as well as assessing and improving driver capability to operate these vehicles safely.

An essential element in preventing crashes is the ability to identify life-threatening problems on the Nation's highways, to assess our progress toward mitigating them, to make necessary changes to improve our strategies, and to identify and intensify successful countermeasures. Currently, our data systems are capable of doing so only after a long time delay. To make our analysis of highway deaths more timely, a new initiative to implement a real-time account of highway fatalities is included in this budget request. The proposed new Early Fatality Analysis Notification System will allow NHTSA to develop protocols, procedures, processes, and data management systems for evaluating, improving, and monitoring the State fatality notification systems and accelerate submitting the fatality data from State law enforcement agencies to the national system.

Under the Environmental Stewardship goal, NHTSA will identify and seek to implement reforms to the
CAFE system that will improve fuel economy and our national energy security while improving motor vehicle
safety and jobs.

We are confident that the FY 2005 performance-based, results-oriented budget will provide our citizens with programs that will better meet the Nation's priority of safe transportation.