§31108 Motor carrier research and technology program

Summary

The Secretary of Transportation must create and run a research and technology program for commercial motor carriers and motor coaches. The program needs a multi-year plan for new, non-duplicate research and must be coordinated with other Department of Transportation research. It can study crash causes and ways to reduce crashes and injuries, improve safety and efficiency with new technology, improve technologies used by officers for roadside inspections and compliance checks, and make hazardous materials transport safer. The Secretary can test or help develop inventions, materials, patented items, or processes and may use program funds to train safety staff (for example, in accident reconstruction or spotting drugs, contraband, or stolen cargo). Work can be done alone, with other federal groups, or by grants, contracts, or cooperative deals with labs, state agencies, schools, companies, nonprofits, foreign governments, or people. Funds must also be used to develop, share, and promote research results. To speed up useful technology, the Secretary may do cost-shared research and development with non-federal partners (such as state or local governments, colleges, companies, and foreign governments) and with federal laboratories. The Secretary may sign cooperative research and development agreements under the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980 (15 U.S.C. 3710a). The federal share of costs generally cannot be more than 50 percent unless there is a strong public benefit. Costs directly paid by non-federal partners count toward their share. Work, licensing terms, and royalty rules for technologies under those agreements follow the Stevenson-Wydler Act.