23 U.S.C. § 153 — Use of safety belts and motorcycle helmets

(a) Authority to make grants. The Secretary could give a state a grant in a fiscal year if the state, that year, had (1) a law making it illegal statewide to ride a motorcycle without a motorcycle helmet, and (2) a law making it illegal statewide to drive or ride in the front seat of a passenger vehicle without a safety belt fastened — unless the person was a child secured in a child restraint. (b) Use of grants. A state had to use its grant to run a traffic safety program covering: (1) Education — teaching the public about motorcycle and vehicle safety and about helmet, belt, and child-restraint use, working with health agencies. (2) Training — training police officers to enforce the state's helmet and belt laws. (3) Monitoring — tracking how well people complied with those laws. (4) Enforcement — actually enforcing those laws. (c) Maintenance of effort. A state could only get a grant if it agreed to keep spending at least as much of its own money on these traffic safety programs as it had spent, on average, in the two years before this section was enacted. (d) Federal share. A state could get grants in no more than 3 fiscal years. The federal government's share of the cost dropped each year: 75% the first year a state got a grant, 50% the second year, and 25% the third year. (e) Maximum aggregate amount of grants. Total grants to a state under this section could not exceed 90% of what that state got under section 402 for fiscal year 1990. (f) Eligibility for grants. (1) In general, a state was eligible only if it agreed to actually run a qualifying traffic safety program that year. (2) To get a second-year grant, in the year before, the state needed to have kept its helmet law in force the whole year with at least 75% compliance, and kept its belt law in force the whole year with at least 50% compliance. (3) To get a third-year grant, in the year before, those compliance rates needed to be at least 85% for the helmet law and 70% for the belt law. (g) Measurements of rates of compliance. To measure compliance under (f)(2) and (f)(3), a state had to use methods that followed the Secretary's guidelines for accuracy. (h) Penalty. (1) Before fiscal year 2012: if a state did not have a safety belt law in effect at any time between October 1, 1994 and October 1, 2011, the Secretary had to shift 3% of that state's highway funds — from three specific categories under section 104(b) — over to its section 402 safety funding, for the next fiscal year. (2) From fiscal year 2012 on, the same kind of shift applied, but at 2% instead of 3%, from three different categories under section 104(b). (3) Federal share. The federal government paid 100% of the cost of any project funded with these shifted dollars. (4) Transfer of obligation authority. When the Secretary shifted funds this way, the Secretary also had to shift a matching share of the state's authority to actually spend (obligate) money on highway and highway-safety projects — calculated using a specific ratio between the shifted funds and the state's total highway obligation authority. (5) Limitation on applicability. No general cap on highway-safety-program spending applied to money shifted under this subsection. (i) Definitions. (1) "Motorcycle" means a motor vehicle designed to travel on 3 or fewer wheels touching the ground. (2) "Motor vehicle" has the meaning given in section 154 of this title. (3) "Passenger vehicle" means a motor vehicle designed to carry 10 people or fewer, including the driver — but not a truck-chassis vehicle, a motorcycle, a trailer, or any vehicle that federal safety standards did not require to have a belt system as of this section's enactment date. (4) "Safety belt" means: (A) for open vehicles like convertibles, a lap belt, or a lap belt plus a separate shoulder belt; (B) for other passenger vehicles, a combined lap-and-shoulder belt system. (j) Authorization of appropriations. Congress authorized $17,000,000 from the Highway Trust Fund (excluding its Mass Transit Account) for fiscal year 1992 to carry out this section. The Secretary also had to set aside $17,000,000 in fiscal year 1992, and $24,000,000 in each of fiscal years 1993 and 1994, from section 402 funding, for this section. (k) Applicability of chapter 1 provisions. All the usual rules that apply to National Highway System funds also applied to money spent under this section — except the rules about how funds get apportioned, and rules limiting spending to Federal-aid highway systems — unless the Secretary decided a rule conflicted with this section. Money authorized under this section stayed available until it was spent, with no expiration.