DOT Announces $118 Million in Funding
On December 30th Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy announced $118 million in grant awards aiming to increase safety on America’s roadways, through the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).
Details
The FMCSA grant spending announced on December 30th is thus:
- $71.6 million in High Priority grants: safety data improvement projects and increased enforcement against high-risk driving on relatively unsafe traffic corridors.
- $43.8 million in Commercial Driver’s License Program Implementation grants: to help states comply with federal standards on CDL issuance. This news comes hot off the heels of Sean Duffy’s actions against numerous states to punish those with lax standards for non-domiciled CDLs.
- $3.4 million in grant spending to help train veterans to transition to civilian life with a trucking career.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, our department’s number one mission is to ensure that every American gets home safely,” Duffy said in the statement announcing these increases in grant spending. “We’re backing aggressive enforcement and empowering states to keep unqualified, unvetted drivers off the road, investing in state-of-the-art technology to make our roads safer, and taking care of veterans interested in a career in trucking.”
FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs echoed Duffy’s sentiments with his own statement. ”Whether it’s deploying smart technology to identify unsafe vehicles or auditing CDL programs to prevent fraud, every dollar is focused on raising the bar for safety and ensuring only qualified drivers and compliant vehicles are on our roads.”
Conclusion
Assuming that what Derek Barrs said is true and that this increase of federal spending will result in higher safety standards on the road, the economic impact of these decisions is obvious: not only does safer drivers reduce the economic losses from catastrophes, but a higher standard on the road means there will be fewer drivers on the road and as such supply from both companies and drivers will decrease, resulting in higher wages and earnings for those still in the game. If the Trump Administration can make it pay to be a responsible driver, traffic fatalities per 1 million miles traveled by a commercial vehicle may decrease yet.
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