Most crash reports do not capture critical data, says National Safety Council

A National Safety Council review of motor vehicle crash reports from across the US found no state fully captures critical data needed to address and understand the rise in roadway fatalities. Crash reports from all 50 states lack fields or codes for law enforcement to record the level of driver fatigue at the time of a crash, while many others lack fields to capture texting, hands-free cell phone use and specific types of drug use if drugs are detected, including marijuana. Excluding these fields limits the
April 25, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
A 4953 National Safety Council review of motor vehicle crash reports from across the US found no state fully captures critical data needed to address and understand the rise in roadway fatalities. Crash reports from all 50 states lack fields or codes for law enforcement to record the level of driver fatigue at the time of a crash, while many others lack fields to capture texting, hands-free cell phone use and specific types of drug use if drugs are detected, including marijuana. Excluding these fields limits the ability to effectively address these problems, says the report.


States are also failing to capture teen driver restrictions, the use of advanced driver assistance technologies and of infotainment systems. The findings are summarised in the new NSC report, Undercounted is Underinvested: How incomplete crash reports impact efforts to save lives, released during Distracted Driving Awareness Month.
   
Preliminary estimates from the National Safety Council indicate as many as 40,000 people died in car crashes in 2016, marking a six per cent increase over 2015 and a 14 per cent increase over 2014 – the most dramatic two-year escalation since 1964. Without a clear understanding of the scope of the problem, regulations, laws and policies cannot be more effective.

The National Safety Council is calling on the traffic safety community to take several actions to ensure better data collection and has compiled a full list of recommendations, which is available on its website.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Truck platooning trials take to the highways
    July 24, 2017
    There is rising enthusiasm in America and beyond for the concept of truck platooning with trials being planned in several US states, as David Crawford reports. Growing numbers of US states are considering or implementing plans for trials of electronically-linked truck platooning on public road networks. This is in response to the interest being shown by the US$70bn a year road freight industry, where fuel represents 41% of the operating costs making the prospect of improving fuel economy by trucks travellin
    Read More
  • Truck platooning trials take to the highways
    July 24, 2017
    There is rising enthusiasm in America and beyond for the concept of truck platooning with trials being planned in several US states, as David Crawford reports. Growing numbers of US states are considering or implementing plans for trials of electronically-linked truck platooning on public road networks. This is in response to the interest being shown by the US$70bn a year road freight industry, where fuel represents 41% of the operating costs making the prospect of improving fuel economy by trucks travellin
    Read More
  • Does ADAS create as many problems as it solves
    September 23, 2014
    Victoria Banks and Neville Stanton [1] of Southampton University’s Transportation Research Group examine the real impact of creeping driver automation. Safety research suggests that 90% of accidents are thought to be a result of driver inattentiveness to unpredictable or incomplete information and the vision is that highly automated vehicles will lead to accident-free driving in the future.
    Read More
  • As many as '50,000' daily cases of illegal phone use on English roads
    June 17, 2024
    Results from UK DfT and Aecom using Acusensus tech suggest worrying scale of problem
    Read More

Highlighted Content