Transportation to unveil database standards to improve highway safety
Officials are creating standard definitions for data fields and combining some operational activities.
The Transportation Department plans to unveil next month changes in how it compiles data on traffic accidents so it can more accurately track highway safety problems.
For more than two decades, Transportation has collected data on deadly crashes in the United States in a repository called the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, while separately gathering reports on all accidents, from minor to fatal, using the National Automotive Sampling System General Estimates System.
To reduce errors and discrepancies between the two databases, the department is creating standard definitions for data fields and combining some operational activities, according to officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the agency within Transportation that oversees the initiative.
The federal government also is trying to align both systems with state guidelines for crash reports. States, which are responsible for informing Transportation of accidents, are adopting a single set of guidelines called the model minimum uniform crash criteria.
The work is nearly complete and will be partially showcased on Sept. 14 during an online public meeting, according to a notice published in the Federal Register on Thursday. The webinar will highlight adjustments made in 2009 during the first of two phases of restructuring.
Governments, researchers, insurance companies and the media rely on the fatality statistics -- derived from 125 data elements -- to evaluate traffic-related policies such as seat belt laws, speed limits and vehicle safety designs. Many of the measurements are posted online. The National Automotive Sampling System, which samples various geographic areas using about 90 data elements, helps the federal government evaluate traffic safety initiatives.
A few years ago, Congress, which often presses agencies' to monitor performance by accumulating data on outcomes, mandated Transportation award states annual grants to improve their traffic safety information systems.
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