Hearing
Every Life Counts: Improving the Safety of our Nation’s RoadwaysHVC 210, Capitol Visitor CenterThis is a hearing of the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit.Official Transcript Witness List: The Honorable Jennifer Homendy, Member, National Transportation Safety Board | Written Testimony The Honorable Fred Jones, Vice Mayor, City of Neptune Beach, Florida; on behalf of Transportation for America | Written Testimonhttp://docs.house.gov/meetings/PW/PW12/20190409/109248/HHRG-116-PW12-Wstate-JonesF-20190409.pdf Mr. Michael L. Brown, Chief of Police, City of Alexandria | Written Testimony Mr. Jay Bruemmer, Vice President, K & G Striping, Inc.; on behalf of the American Traffic Safety Services Association | Written Testimony Mr. Mike Sewell, Active Transportation Service Line Leader, Gresham Smith; on behalf of The League of American Bicyclists | Written Testimony Mr. Nicholas Smith, Interim President and Chief Executive Officer, The National Safety Council | Written Testimony Opening remarks, as prepared, of U.S. Rep. Ross Spano (R-FL): Thank you, Chairwoman Norton. I want to welcome everyone to today’s hearing. The current federal surface transportation law, the FAST Act, expires on September 30, 2020. Last month, this subcommittee held a hearing to kick off its process to reauthorize federal surface transportation programs. Today’s hearing builds on that and is focused on how Congress can improve the safety of the Nation’s roads. In 2017, 37,133 fatalities occurred on our Nation’s highways, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. While this is a 1.8 percent decrease from 2016, more can be done to further reduce highway fatalities. The federal surface transportation safety programs are administered by different modal administrations within the Department of Transportation. These programs provide non-federal partners with resources to improve the safety of the Nation’s surface transportation system. Today’s hearing focuses on the safety programs administered by the Federal Highway Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. These programs require states to have a data-driven, performance-based approach to address their unique highway safety challenges. As we continue with our reauthorization process, it is important that we gather feedback on how well these programs are working and what other policy and programmatic changes the Committee should consider. With that, I want to thank our witnesses for being with us this morning, and I look forward to hearing their testimony on this very important topic. |