The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is responsible for reducing injuries, deaths, and economic losses resulting from motor vehicle crashes, and its mission is to save lives, prevent injuries, and reduce traffic-related health care and other economic costs.

The law enforcement community is a key partner to NHTSA, and as a result, NHTSA designated the Traffic Law Enforcement Division to anticipate and respond to the needs of law enforcement and to develop innovative products for law enforcement’s use in reducing traffic crashes, injuries, and deaths.

NHTSA assists law enforcement by maintaining the integrity of the tools used by law enforcement in the performance of their duties. For example, it would be impractical and too expensive for each law enforcement agency to set up test labs to assure that the speed measuring devices they want to use meet model performance specifications. Thus, NHTSA established laboratories to test speed measurement equipment so that law enforcement agencies only need to check that the equipment they purchase is on the Consumer Products List (CPL) or the Federal Register. Following is an overview of the Speed Measuring Program. Additionally, NHTSA is currently testing a new device, the Mobile Officer’s Assistant, designed to assist traffic enforcement officers.

Speed Enforcement Technology
For more than 40 years, the public and the courts have accepted radar speed measuring devices as a reliable tool for measuring vehicular speed. Most recently, law enforcement agencies have started to use laser (lidar) and automated speed measuring devices to curtail speeding. Continued use and acceptance of these speed measuring devices in the courts are critical in reducing the number of speed-related traffic crash fatalities. To assure this, the following actions have been taken:

• NHTSA maintains an Interagency Agreement with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop speed measuring device performance specifications. Development of these performance specifications satisfies the needs of criminal justice agencies for high quality service from speed measuring devices.

• The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Speed Measurement Advisory Technical Subcommittee (SMAT) adopted these performance specifications for its testing program.

• These performance specifications serve as the resource for model minimum performance specifications and equipment requirements for speed measuring devices. Manufacturers are encouraged to produce speed measuring devices that meet or exceed these performance specifications.

• NHTSA provides funding and technical support to IACP to support and maintain speed measuring device testing laboratories. These laboratories, certified by IACP with assistance from NIST, conduct speed measuring device test procedures for IACP’s CPL and Critical Performance Testing (CPT).

• IACP publishes radar and lidar CPL’s indicating the models for each type of device that meet or exceed NHTSA performance specifications for that specific type of device. Since the CPL’s are revised as new devices are added, agencies should contact IACP to obtain the latest CPL. To obtain a copy of the speed measuring device CPL, fax a request (indicate the type of device, e.g., radar, lidar) on agency letterhead to the IACP Speed Measuring Device Program CPL, (703) 836-4543.

Purchasers generally use these performance specifications as a model for the development of their minimum requirement standards to ensure that a particular device meets their essential requirements. Procurement officials may also refer to these performance specifications in their purchasing documents and require that devices meet, at a minimum, these specifications. Because this NHTSA document is designed as a evelopment and procurement aid, it is necessarily highly technical. To obtain a copy of the performance specifications, fax your request (indicate type of device, e.g., radar, lidar) on agency letterhead to Speed Measuring Device Performance Specifications, (202) 366-7721.

The Application of Advanced Technology to Traffic Enforcement
A Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) project was developed by NHTSA and Anacapa Sciences, Inc. to demonstrate the feasibility of developing highly-portable devices designed to assist traffic enforcement officers by automatically:

• Obtaining data from the magnetic stripes on driver’s licenses and from bar-coded Vehicle Identification Numbers (VIN)

• Checking the license numbers and VIN’s against local, state, and regional databases to identify any outstanding warrants for arrest

• Printing tickets on-site using the automatically-captured data

Anacapa Sciences, Inc., and NHTSA are continuing the development and evaluation of the system that was designed during the initial phase of the project. The Mobile Officer’s Assistant is based on a Newton MessagePad (MP) 2000, which is a pen-based, hand-held computer that contains wireless, Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD) transmission capabilities. The MP 2000 was found to be among the most portable, reliable, and cost-effective of the many hand-held computers that were evaluated. Most important, the feature that distinguishes the Mobile Officer’s Assistant from all similar efforts is that it can be used independently of a patrol vehicle, for example, by motorcycle, bicycle, foot, or mounted patrols.

Potential benefits of the Mobile Officer’s Assistant include:

• Contributing to officer safety
• Contributing to the apprehension of wanted suspects and the recovery of stolen vehicles
• Reducing the time required by an officer to issue a traffic citation (more important, increasing the time available for patrol)
• Eliminating duplication of data entry by records departments and the courts
• Improving the accuracy and legibility of citations
• Speeding the processing of citations

Status of Project
The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) has been selected to pilot test the Mobile Officer’s Assistant. The SFPD will receive six of the hand-held units and a mobile data server that is a necessary interface between the computers and the agency’s message switch. The system will be used by SFPD officers primarily during routine traffic enforcement. Following a brief training and orientation session, participating officers will use the devices for a period of 6 months. During this time, data will be collected concerning objective and subjective measures of system performance. For example, the project will calculate the time required to generate a traffic citation, comparing the traditional manual method to the automated approach. Calculations will be made monthly to measure the effects of learning on officer performance. Data concerning system reliability and operational and maintenance costs will be computed for later comparison to the costs of manual procedures. Also, citation accuracy rates, processing time and costs, and numbers of arrests made as a consequence of traffic enforcement stops will be calculated for both the manual and automated means. In addition, measures of officer acceptance of the systems will be obtained prior to the training sessions and monthly throughout the field study. Officers’ comments will be used to refine system features and functionality.

To obtain additional information regarding this project, fax your request on agency letterhead to Mobile Officer’s Assistant, (202) 366-7721.

Technology Clearinghouse
IACP has developed a database of traffic records and other traffic law enforcement technologies. This resource is primarily for law enforcement organizations that have an interest in traffic enforcement and community traffic safety programs. Law enforcement agencies will be permitted to submit data and provide comments about a specific technology in the database. Law enforcement agencies can access information on-line, through an electronic bulletin board, and via telephone or fax.

Technicians Guide to Vehicle and Child Safety Seat Choices
Officers who teach child passenger safety programs or conduct child safety seat check points or clinics will find this new CD-ROM program useful. By filling in data fields, the program, which includes over 35 child safety seats and 400 various 1994-98 model year vehicles, properly matches a child safety seat to the vehicle choice selected. The CD-ROM shows the appropriate seating positions in the specified vehicle where the chosen child safety seat can be installed securely. Limited supporting information is also available about installing the child safety seat correctly, such as the necessity of locking clips, switchable retractors, etc. The CD-ROM will be available from NHTSA in August 1998.

Breath Testing Technology
More than 25 years ago, NHTSA developed performance standards for evidential breath testers (EBT). They were last modified in 1993, when NHTSA re-tested EBT’s at lower blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels. All commercially available EBT’s sold in the United States are currently tested against the NHTSA model specifications at .020, .040, .080, and .160 BAC. NHTSA periodically updates its CPL of EBT’s in the Federal Register so that users will know which devices meet or exceed the NHTSA guidelines. The most recent update of the CPL for EBT’s was in the Federal Register on February 27, 1998 (Vol. 63, No. 39, 10066-10068).

NHTSA also updated its model specifications for calibrating units for breath alcohol testers in 1997 and published a separate CPL for calibrating units in the Federal Register on August 13, 1997 (Vol. 62, No. 156, 43425).

Screening Devices
In 1994, NHTSA also established model specifications for screening devices to measure alcohol in bodily fluids. These model specifications were established to support state laws that target youth offenders (i.e., zero tolerance laws) and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s initiative to prevent alcohol misuse in the transportation workplace. For these model specifications, devices are only tested at the .020 BAC level. The CPL for screening devices, which includes both electronic breath testers and several disposable saliva-alcohol devices, was published in the Federal Register on August 15, 1995 (Vol. 60, No. 157, 42214-42215).