Your trusted "safety sidekick” to make rural road travel safer! 
Crash records are used to measure and compare transportation safety across states, to design countermeasures, and to guide decision-making. This data is most useful when it is reliable, accurate, and consistent. Improvements to traffic safety data collection and management practices will make this data more robust and useful. However, for most road agencies, data collection is a secondary responsibility after ensuring public safety and assisting survivors. Many local and especially rural agencies lack funding and staff to dedicate to data collection and management.
This section provides guidelines and best practices for enhancing the accuracy and consistency of crash records.
Rural roadway departures make up a third of U.S. traffic fatalities—about 30 people a day. The Every Day Counts round five (EDC-5) initiative, Focus on Reduci ... [ Read More » ]
The DDSA Crash Tree Tool allows users to generate crash tree diagrams based on the NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) or other crash datasets. Cras ... [ Read More » ]
The National Center for Rural Road Safety (Safety Center) hosted a FREE, 1.5-hour online webinar. Webinar Description Have you ever been tasked with a safety-re ... [ Read More » ]
The National Center for Rural Road Safety (Safety Center) is hosted a FREE, 1.5-hour online webinar. Webinar Description This webinar provided an overview ... [ Read More » ]
Imagine – a car approaching an intersection tries to avoid a large object in the road, swerves out of the way and hits a lamppost, causing serious damage. Then the car bounces back into the roadway and whereby ...
[ Read More » ]This rural/urban comparison provides: an overview time of day speeding alcohol restraint use rollover crashes driver characteristics nonoccupants fatalities by ... [ Read More » ]
The National Center for Rural Road Safety (Safety Center) hosted a FREE, 1.5-hour online webinar. Webinar Description This webinar provided an overview of the e ... [ Read More » ]
“This fact sheet contains information on fatal motor vehicle crashes and fatalities, based on data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). FAR ... [ Read More » ]
This website provides technical assistance and training programs that can help States build traffic safety data collection, management, and analysis capacity in ... [ Read More » ]
The National Center for Rural Road Safety (Safety Center), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NH ... [ Read More » ]
The Roadway Safety Data Program Toolbox contains resources that will help your organization build a new or strengthen an existing roadway safety data program ... [ Read More » ]
“Whether you are a safety data guru, a junior analyst, or somewhere in between, the Roadway Safety Data Program (RSDP) Toolbox is for you! The Toolbox is ... [ Read More » ]
“For highways located in different counties and cities across the country, specific conditions of weather, terrain, traffic characteristics, highway condi ... [ Read More » ]
This NHTSA press release from August 2016 discusses the call to action issued by the White House and DOT to data scientists and public health experts as 2,348 m ... [ Read More » ]
NHTSA’s National Center for Statistics and Analysis has been producing annual estimates of lives saved since 1975. This fact sheet contains finding for 2015 b ... [ Read More » ]
This Research Note provides a brief overview of the 2015 fatal crash picture using data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Ana ... [ Read More » ]
This FHWA website provides crash modification factors (CMF), as well as, guides for how to use and/or develop CMF. “A crash modification factor (CMF) is a ... [ Read More » ]
“Data-Driven Safety Analysis is the application of the latest generation of tools for analyzing crash and roadway data. This video gives an overview of th ... [ Read More » ]
The National Center for Rural Road Safety (Safety Center) hosted a FREE, 1.5-hour online webinar. Webinar Description This webinar providee information on: ... [ Read More » ]
This is a NHTSA press release from February 2016 describing the early fatality estimates for 2015 data, the steep increase in deaths, and describing NHTSA’ ... [ Read More » ]
“A statistical projection of traffic fatalities for the first nine months of 2015 shows that an estimated 26,000 people died in motor vehicle traffic cras ... [ Read More » ]
In this fact sheet, the 2013 rural and urban information is presented in the following order: Overview Time of Day Speeding Alcohol Restraint Use Rollover Cras ... [ Read More » ]
“This guidebook provides State departments of transportation (DOT) and metropolitan planning organization (MPO) planners with a framework for navigating t ... [ Read More » ]
Crashes are random events and low traffic volumes therefore don’t always make crash hot-spot identification possible. This project has used extensive data col ... [ Read More » ]
“This State Traffic Records Coordinating Committee Noteworthy Practices Guide was developed under the direction of the USDOT|TRCC as a way to help State T ... [ Read More » ]
Motorcycle Traffic Safety Facts
This fact sheet uses 2013 data. The following definitions apply to terms used throughout this fact sheet: Motorcycles are defined as mopeds, two- or three-wheel ... [ Read More » ]
2015 Pocket Guide to Large Trucks and Bus Statistics
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) 2015 Pocket Guide to Large Truck and Bus Statistics highlights the Agency’s role in enforcement an ... [ Read More » ]
“The National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey (NMVCCS), conducted from 2005 to 2007, was aimed at collecting on-scene information about the events an ... [ Read More » ]
Traffic Safety Facts 2012 Data: Rural/Urban Comparison
This fact sheet contains a rural/urban comparison of statistics on motor vehicle fatal crashes based on data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). ... [ Read More » ]
DDACTS Data Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety Operational Guidelines
Data-Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety (DDACTS) is a law enforcement operational model supported by a partnership among the Department of Transporta ... [ Read More » ]
“This study examines changes over time in the numbers and rates of police-reported crashes involving passenger vehicles (cars, pickup trucks, vans, miniva ... [ Read More » ]
“This Research Brief provides updated statistics on rates of crashes, injuries and death per mile driven in relation to driver age based on the most recen ... [ Read More » ]
Road Safety Information Analysis
“This Research Brief provides updated statistics on rates of crashes, injuries and death per mile driven in relation to driver age based on the most recen ... [ Read More » ]
Implementing the High Risk Rural Roads Program
“This Research Brief provides updated statistics on rates of crashes, injuries and death per mile driven in relation to driver age based on the most recen ... [ Read More » ]