Thursday, February 22, 2007

The Federal Register, bicycling and the cost of compliance

I've created a RSS feed for the bicycling information junkies out there: The Federal Register and Bicycling.

The Federal Register is a daily compilation of U.S. Federal regulations, notices, presidential proclamations, executive orders, and other federal agency documents of public interest. I've taken an RSS feed from several Federal agencies and filter for bicycling-related terms to create this new feed using the Yahoo Pipes service.

Get Free Video Downloads!

The first item I've caught is this request for comments from the Consumer Product Safety Commission on collecting information about the paperwork burden created by Public Law 103267, aka the "Children's Bicycle Helmet Safety Act of 1994."

This law creates the standards by which bicycle helmets can be sold in the United States, specifying impact standards, testing methods, and record-keeping requirements. According to the CPSC, helmet manufacturers and importers spend from 100 to 150 hours per model per year to comply with the law. With an estimated 200 models of bicycle helmets sold in the United States, that works out to about $1,000,000 of paperwork every year.

I'm sure all kinds of fascinating information can be obtained from this feed. Feel free to subscribe to this RSS feed or view the formatted output. Let me know if you think this is a useful tool.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks, its is very useful

Ed W said...

Thanks, Fritz. I think this will come in handy as new legislation and new regulations come our way.