Legislative Effect

The Department of Transportation (DOT) was created in 1966 by Congress. The purpose of the Department of Transportation was created to provide safe and adequate transportation needs for the public using the highways. The Department of Transportation is in charge of administrating and creating policies that shape and improve the highway systems. The Department of Transportation was set up to create safe and adequate travel services for the public. The Department of Transportation was also put in charge of setting vehicle standards and safety measures that are put in place in vehicles. Also setting up standards and providing research for local emergency medical services is a job of the department of Transportation.

The Highway Safety Act was created in 1966. This act was created to make sure that each vehicle we made safer and that additional features where added to vehicles so that they could be made safer and reduce the number of fatalities that were caused from motor vehicle accidents. They also tried to make the public more aware of the decisions that they were making so that they would make safer decisions. Reducing underage drinking, using seatbelts, and using child restraint seats all led up to less fatality accidents.

When Congress got involved in 1966 it was determined that emergency medical response needed to be improved as well. The amount of emergency responders needed to be increased and the equipment that was used needed to be upgraded and improved so that the number of people that died before they could reach the hospital would be decreased. The Emergency Medical Services Systems Act is how all of these things came into play. Providing more training and more emergency rescue vehicles to help in the event of any emergency or accident helped the people that have been affected.

The EMS Agenda for the Future was created in 1996 to help pull everything together and create a vision for the future of EMS. The Agenda for the Future helped to support and provide training for emergency workers and citizens. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) helps with responding and preventing large scale disaster whether the disaster is manmade or naturally occurring. The DHS provides training and response to disasters as well as monitoring and preventing any terrorist threat or disaster.

The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act (SAFETEA) was created in 2005 to guarantee funding for the improvement of roads and safety. This program also created a safety program for schools, work zones, and in toll access areas. The Federal Interagency Committee on EMS was created in 2005 to help each level of emergency workers coordinate together efficiently. This programs allows local, state, regional, and government agencies to be able to communicate and coordinate in the event of an emergency. This program also allows these agencies to communicate with 911 operators in the event of