Federal highway grants now require vehicle tracking and crash prediction data.

What it does

This bill amends federal highway safety grant programs to allow states and localities to use federal money for predictive data analytics, telematics (vehicle tracking), and other advanced technologies to identify dangerous road segments and prevent crashes. It requires the Department of Transportation to issue guidance within one year on how to anonymize data, protect privacy, and ensure these tools are validated before use, and directs DOT to coordinate across agencies on deployment of these technologies.

Why we flagged it

The bill's operative mechanism is a mandate to integrate predictive analytics and telematics into federal highway safety grant programs. It is not a deregulation, carve-out, or subsidy—it is a technology integration requirement that conditions federal funding on adoption of data-driven safety tools.

What the text implies

• Telematics and predictive analytics require continuous collection of vehicle location, speed, acceleration, and driver behavior data. The bill mandates this collection as a condition of federal highway safety funding but defers privacy safeguards to future DOT guidance, not statute—creating a gap between mandate and protection.
• States and localities receiving federal highway safety grants will be required to adopt these technologies, effectively making telematics deployment a condition of federal funding. This may accelerate data collection infrastructure in rural and underserved areas without explicit local consent.
• The bill defines 'safety data' broadly and requires 'anonymization' guidance but does not prohibit re-identification, linkage with other datasets, or commercial use of anonymized data by third parties. Guidance alone cannot prevent downstream data sales or misuse.
• Predictive analytics tools used to identify 'high-risk roadway segments' may correlate with demographic characteristics (income, race, vehicle type) if training data reflects historical crash patterns. The bill requires 'validated methodologies' but does not mandate bias audits or disparate-impact testing.
• The bill creates a new federal coordination mechanism across DOT, DOE, DOC, and other agencies for 'interoperability' of predictive tools. This suggests a longer-term federal data-sharing infrastructure for transportation, with implications for surveillance scope not fully visible in this text.

Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.

Who it affects

The bill creates a genuine public benefit—better crash prevention through data-driven road safety—but introduces a concrete cost: expanded collection and use of vehicle telematics and crash data, with privacy protections delegated to future guidance rather than locked into statute. Citizens gain safer roads but lose some control over how their driving data is collected and used.

Who stands to gain

• telematics and vehicle-tracking technology vendors
• predictive analytics software companies
• data aggregation and risk-modeling firms
• intelligent transportation systems (ITS) contractors
• freight logistics and fleet management companies

Named in the bill

Department of Transportation (DOT), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Commerce (DOC), Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office, Section 148 (Highway Safety Improvement Program), Section 167 (National Highway Freight Program), Section 405 (National Priority Safety Programs)

Where it stands

5 cosponsors: 3 Republicans, 2 Democrats.

• Dec 18, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
• Dec 18, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure”

Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.

Money around this bill

3 lobbying clients named this bill on 4 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $1,180,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 10 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.

More lobbying clients named this bill than 61% of bills with at least one filing.

Tracey Mann, the sponsor, reported $639,250 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.

• American Trucking Associations — $720,000 on 1 filing
• Transportation Trades Department AFL-CIO — $400,000 on 1 filing
• Cambridge Mobile Telematics — $60,000 on 2 filings

Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 21, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.