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GAO Study of the “Share the Road Safely / No Zone” Program Supports Recommendations of Safety Groups for Changes

U.S. General Accounting Office, Truck Safety: Share the Road Safely Program Needs Better Evaluation of Its Initiatives, GAO-03-680, May 2003

To view the full or highlighted GAO Report, please visit the U.S. General Accounting Office Web Page and type GAO-03-680 in the Full Text Search window of the left side panel.

As directed by Congress, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) conducted an evaluation from January through May 2003 of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DoT) “Share the Road Safely” program, otherwise known as the “No Zone” program.

Not surprising to truck safety groups, the current GAO evaluation is similar to its previous evaluation and testimony in that both reviews stress the failure of the Share the Road Safely / No Zone program to have quantified measures of effectiveness to determine the extent of the success of the educational effort.

GAO emphasized the seriousness of the truck-passenger vehicle crash problem: from 1992 through 2001, about 40,000 people were killed in these collisions, more than 6,800 were occupants of the large trucks, and more than 4,000 killed in these multi-vehicle impacts were nonmotorists. In these crashes, the occupants of the passenger vehicles are more than 15 times more likely to be killed than truck occupants (relative risk odds ratio).

GAO criticized the three earlier evaluations by the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration (FMCSA) of the Share the Road Safely / No Zone program because they were unable to determine program effectiveness due to:
- Evaluations relying on self-reports by motorists that are inherently biased.
- Failure of the FMCSA to have a baseline of driver knowledge and behavior before inception of the program to use to compare before/after effects of the program.
- No ability of the FMCSA to determine whether there were any changes in driving behavior or frequency of passenger vehicle-large truck crashes because of program initiatives or because of other influences.

GAO stressed that numerous highway safety officials and researchers contacted for the current evaluation all agreed that public education efforts alone are unlikely to produce substantial changes in driver behavior unless they are coupled with other safety initiatives such as local law enforcement programs to increase traffic law compliance.

GAO points out that the citation of passenger vehicle operators for driving violations more often than large truck drivers led the FMCSA to emphasize that the basic thrust of the program should be passenger vehicle drivers staying out of large truck blind spots. “However, subsequent research by FHWA concluded that, at most, only 35 percent of fatal passenger vehicle and large commercial truck collisions are attributable to passenger vehicles traveling in the no-zone.”

From FY 1992 through 2003, about $6.8 million was spent on the program. Most funds are used to hire contractors, with contracts up to $300,000. The contractors are not specifically named in this GAO report. The FMCSA has no available information on where contract money went between 1992-1999.

The FMCSA acknowledged to the GAO that NHTSA has the expertise in developing and evaluating information dissemination programs aimed at improving driver safety consciousness and driving behavior.

CRASH and P.A.T.T., along with Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, make the following recommendations for reauthorizing the “Share the Road Safely / No Zone” program:

1) The Share the Road Safely / No Zone program should be transferred to NHTSA to take advantage of that agency’s expertise in creating, implementing, and evaluating educational programs, especially those addressing the need of changing driver behavior and attitudes. NHTSA should be specifically charged with fulfilling the GAO’s stated goals of the program, that is, to show measurable improvements in driver behavior and attitudes, and in the crash rates for large truck-vehicle collisions by using recognized scientific methods of evaluation. The educational effort must be coupled with specific law enforcement efforts that cite both truck drivers and passenger vehicle drivers for violations.

2) If NHTSA cannot show demonstrable progress in reducing poor driving behavior and lowering truck-passenger vehicle crash rates after two years, Congress should sunset the Share the Road Safely / No Zone program.

3) MCSAP funds should not be used for the Share the Road Safely program, which would be allowed by the Administration’s reauthorization bill, until the program has demonstrated success in meeting the goals set forth by the GAO.

These recommendations are supported by the foregoing findings and recommendations in the GAO Report GAO-03-680.

To view the full or highlighted GAO Report, please visit the U.S. General Accounting Office Web Page and type GAO-03-680 in the Full Text Search window of the left side panel.