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Technical Documentation Page
Executive Summary
Background
Purpose of Section 154
Open Container Law Incentives
Open Container Law Conformance Criteria
Status of Conformance: October 2000
Evaluation of the Effects of Open Container
Laws
Public Opinion Concerning Open Container
Laws
Conclusions
Acknowledgments
References
Appendix A: Data Tables
Table 1: Summary of Previous Open Container Laws In the First Four
States to Enact Laws to Conform with TEA-21 Requirements
Figure 1: Percent of All Fatal Crashes That Were Alcohol-Involved:
Six-Month Period After Enforcement Began Compared to the Same Period in
the Previous Year
Figure 2: Nighttime Hit-and-Run Crashes: Six-Month Period After
Enforcement Began Compared to the Same Period in the Previous Year
Figure 3: Percent of All Fatal Crashes
That Were Alcohol-Involved
Figure 4: Percent of Residents Who Believe
Their States Should Have An Open Container Law
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This report presents the
results of a study conducted for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA) to assess the highway safety effects of laws that prohibit open
containers of alcoholic beverages to be located in the passenger compartment
of motor vehicles operated on public roadways. These laws are commonly
referred to as Open Container laws.
Figure
4
Percent of Residents Who Believe Their State Should Have an
Open Container Law: Comparison of States with No-Open Container Laws
to States with Partially and Fully-Conforming Laws
 d
(Note: data from Puerto Rico were not available to include in this
analysis,
therefore, n=3 in the No Open Container law category in Figure 4.)
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Prior to TEA-21, Congress had enacted 23 U.S.C. Section
410 (the Section 410 program) to encourage states to enact and enforce
effective impaired driving measures (including open container laws).
Under this program, states could qualify for supplemental grant funds
if they were eligible for a basic Section 410 grant, and they had
an open container law that met certain requirements. TEA-21 changed
the Section 410 program and removed the open container incentive grant
criterion. The conferees to that legislation had intended to create
a new open container transfer program to encourage states to enact
open container laws, but the new program was inadvertently omitted
from the TEA-21 conference report; the program was included instead
in the TEA-21 Restoration Act. (Information presented in this report
about TEA-21 and the open container regulations, was obtained from
the TEA-21 website, maintained by the U.S. Department of Transportation,
www.fhwa.dot.gov/tea21.)
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Various terms are used throughout the United States
for offenses involving drinking and driving. In this report, Driving
While Impaired (DWI) is used to refer to all occurrences of driving
at or above the legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of a jurisdiction.
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The Act also provides that states may elect to use
all or a portion of the transferred funds for hazard elimination activities
under 23 U.S.C. 152.
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The amount of the apportionment to be
transferred may be derived from one or more of the apportionments
under Sections 104(b)(1), (3) and (4). In other words, the total amount
to be transferred from a non-conforming state will be calculated based
on a percentage of the funds apportioned to the state under each of
Sections 104(b)(1), (3) and (4). However, the actual transfers need
not be evenly distributed among these three sources. The transferred
funds may come from any one or a combination of the apportionments
under Sections 104(b)(1), (3) or (4), as long as the appropriate total
amount is transferred from one or more of these three sections. The
rule specifies that all of the affected state agencies should participate
in deciding how transferred funds should be directed.
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Section 154 provides that nonconforming
states will be subject to the transfer of funds beginning in fiscal
year 2001. To avoid the transfer, each state must submit a certification
demonstrating conformance. The certifications submitted by the states
under this Part will provide the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
and the Federal Highway Administration with the basis for finding
states in conformance with the Open Container requirements. Until
a state has been determined to be in conformance with these requirements,
it must submit a certification by an appropriate state official that
the state has enacted and is enforcing a conforming open container
law. Once a state has been determined to be in conformance with the
requirements, the state would not be required to submit certifications
in subsequent fiscal years, unless the state's law had changed or
the state had ceased to enforce the open container law. States are
required only to submit a certification that they are enforcing their
laws to demonstrate enforcement under the regulation.
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This information was provided by NHTSA's
Office of the Chief Counsel.
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Data illustrated in all figures are
presented in Appendix A.
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Data for Iowa and Rhode Island are
not available; the states' crash investigation forms lack data fields
for hit and run crashes.
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