In April 2003, the U. S. General Accounting Office (the name was changed a year later to Government Accountability Office) issued a Report to Congress titled, “Better Guidance Could Improve Oversight of State Highway Safety Programs” (GAO-03-474). In April 2004, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gave Regional Administrators an oversight process.
One component of the process was the Special Management Review (SMR) The SMR is conducted in a State that consistently demonstrates performance worse than the national average and progress less than half of that recorded by the Nation as a whole. The SMR is one component of NHTSA’s oversight and quality assurance program conducted by its Office of Regional Operations and Program Delivery (ROPD). It was codified in the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-
LU).
http://www.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/whatsup/SAFETEAweb/MRElements/811520.pdf
