The U.S. Government Accountability Office has found shortcomings in how the Federal Highway Administration oversees tests for guardrails and other roadside safety equipment and recommended several changes, including better monitoring and oversight of states’ policies and progress in using newer crash-test standards and providing more guidance to crash-test laboratories to ensure the independence of their tests.
In a report released on July 7, GAO noted that implementation of states’ phased-in conversion to a 2009 crash-test standard from a 1993 standard “has been slow.” It also said, “FHWA has not developed a plan to track progress of the states and industry in meeting the new [crash-test standard] dates.”