GHSA Policy on Financing Highway Safety and Injury Control

Excerpted from GHSA Policies & Priorities

Every year Congress allocates a portion of the federal budget to domestic discretionary programs, including transportation programs. GHSA urges Congress to increase the budget allocation for transportation programs so that states can improve the Nation’s deteriorated infrastructure, provide needed transportation services and address critical highway safety issues.

GHSA supports the continued dedication of the Highway Trust Fund revenues to surface transportation and related activities and opposes efforts that compromise the Highway Trust Fund. In addition, GHSA supports spending all available Highway Trust Fund dollars for our Nation’s surface transportation systems and highway safety programs. 

Highway Trust Fund revenues above a certain level are called Revenue Aligned Budget Authority (RABA). In the past, federal highway safety grant programs have not benefited from RABA dollars. GHSA urges that federal highway safety grant programs receive a proportionate share of RABA funds on an annual basis. 

Beginning with the Transportation Equity Act of the 21st Century (TEA-21), federal behavioral highway safety grant programs have been funded at guaranteed levels out of the Highway Trust Fund. This has ensured that such grant programs are consistently funded at the authorized level and not at some reduced level. GHSA would vigorously oppose any effort to remove the funding guarantees or to shift behavioral grant funding from the Highway Trust Fund to federal General Funds. 

GHSA urges Congress to deploy long-term transportation funding solutions to ensure the continued health and solvency of the Highway Trust Fund.

GHSA’s highest priority is to save lives, and to do that, it is absolutely necessary to increase the funding for federal driver behavior grant programs. Federal driver behavior highway safety grant programs have been consistently underfunded. Without adequate funding, the rate of progress that has been made in highway safety cannot be maintained in the future. More financial resources will be needed to address the remaining most difficult population group to reach — problem drivers — and to focus on all population groups.

Congress’ first priority should be the robust funding of the Section 402 State and Community Safety Grant Program. Congress should invest a greater proportion of funding into Section 402 to provide states with more flexibility to assign safety resources with minimum administrative burden. When investing funding in the Section 405 National Priority Safety Program, Congress should prioritize grant programs for issues associated with the greatest numbers of crashes.

Motor vehicle crashes are part of a much larger national epidemic of unintentional yet preventable injuries. To address the injury problem, Congress has created the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Center funds injury research, provides grants to state and local public health agencies, and works to increase the public’s awareness about injury prevention. GHSA recognizes and supports the critical work performed by the Center. Additionally, the Association supports sufficient funding for the establishment of injury prevention and control programs in the health department in each state and territory.

Adequate EMS is a critical component of any highway safety program. Comprehensive EMS systems, including trauma care, can reduce the severity of injury following motor vehicle crashes if the services are delivered in a timely and appropriate manner. Federal funding for the development and implementation of statewide EMS systems programs and EMS data systems has been woefully inadequate, despite federal legislation authorizing the expenditure of funds for such purposes. GHSA urges Congress to provide adequate funding for the development and implementation of statewide EMS systems, including systems for trauma care and for the collection of EMS data, in order to make these services equally available to all highway users.