Traffic Safety Facts 1996
About This Report
Fatal crash data from FARS and nonfatal crash data from GES are presented in this report in five chapters. Chapter 1, "Trends," presents data from all years of FARS (1975 through 1996) and GES (1988 through 1996). The remaining chapters present data only from 1996. Chapter 2, "Crashes," describes general characteristics of crashes, such as when and how often they occurred, where they occurred, and what happened during the crash. Chapter 3, "Vehicles," concentrates on the types of vehicles involved in crashes and the damage to the vehicles. Chapter 4, "People," is the largest chapter of this report, with statistics about drivers, passengers, pedestrians, and pedalcyclists. The last chapter of the report, "States," contains information about crashes for each state, the Distrhttp://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/ncsaict of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Terms used throughout the report are defined in the Glossary.
About three-quarters of the tables in this report present data from both FARS and GES. The remaining tables contain FARS data only. Statistics describing fatal crashes or fatalities have been
derived from FARS. Statistics describing injury crashes, property-damage-only crashes, or nonfatal injuries have been derived from GES. The reader should be aware that FARS numbers are actual counts of fatalities or fatal crashes, whereas GES numbers are estimates of counts of crashes and injuries and are subject to sampling and nonsampling errors. (See Appendix C for more information on these errors.) To emphasize this difference, FARS numbers are not rounded,
while GES estimates have been rounded to the nearest thousand. As a result of the rounding, for some tables, the sum of the row or column entries may not equal the row or column total. In addition, percentages have been calculated prior to rounding.
The reader may also notice that many tables have rows or footnotes for unknowns for FARS data, but not for GES data. The reason for this difference is that almost all the GES unknown data have been assigned values through complex statistical procedures. FARS unknown data, on the other hand, are not assigned values, with the exception of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) test results. BAC values have been assigned to drivers and nonoccupants involved in fatal crashes when the alcohol test results are unknown. A complete description of the statistical procedures used for unknown data in GES and for unknown alcohol test results in FARS can be found in two technical reports:
Imputation in the General Estimates System (DOT HS 807 985)
and
A Method for Estimating Posterior BAC Distributions for Persons Involved in Fatal Traffic Accidents (DOT HS 807 094).
These reports are available from the National Center for Statistics and
Analysis (NCSA) at the address given in the following section.
Changes from Last Year's Report
In this year's report, estimates of injury and property-damage-only crashes from the General Estimates System (GES) for the years 1993, 1994, and 1995 have been revised from those published in earlier editions of Traffic Safety Facts. Recently, NHTSA decided that changes in the distribution of crashes in the GES were large enough to warrant a change in procedures. It was decided that adjustments would be made to the weights for the GES primary sampling units (PSUs) every 3 years. New weights were adopted in 1996. The implementation of the new weights resulted in slight increases in the estimated numbers of crashes, vehicles, and persons for 1993, 1994, and 1995 compared with the estimates published previously. A NHTSA Research Note, "Reweighting of the Primary Sampling Units in the National Automotive Sampling
System," was published in September 1997 to provide details about the reasons for the revisions and their effects on the estimates. For copies of the research note, please call NHTSA at 1-800-934-8517.
Data Availability
While this report presents a wide spectrum of information in more than 100 tables and figures, it contains only a fraction of the data available from FARS and GES. Additional data from FARS (1975 through 1996) or from GES (1988 through 1996) are available in two ways:
Modest requests for specific data will be answered by NCSA at no charge. Response usually requires about 2 weeks, depending on the nature and complexity of the data requested.
Computer tapes or compact disks can be purchased in one of several formats amenable to analysis. This will enable you to process the data using your own computer system.Information on acquiring the tapes is available by contacting the NCSA at the address below.
Requests for more information from FARS or GES or for a copy of the data files, should be directed to:
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
National Center for Statistics and Analysis
NRD-31
400 Seventh Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20590
(202) 366-4198 or 1-800-934-8517
(202) 366-7078 (FAX)
Additional information on all of NHTSA's data files, including FARS and GES, can be found on the Internet at the NCSA World Wide Web site: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/ncsa. Current fact sheets, as well as recent NCSA research notes and abstracts of technical reports, can be downloaded in portable document format (.pdf). A traffic safety overview is also provided, with information from several fact sheets and data on lives saved by different types of passenger restraints. Comments and suggestions about the NCSA web site can be e-mailed to
ncsaweb@nhtsa.dot.gov
Please send any comments to: ncsaweb@nhtsa.dot.gov
If you are requesting data or other information, your including a fax number, phone number, or postal address will enable us to respond more quickly and thoroughly to your request. You can also phone in information requests to our automated answering system at 1-800-934-8517, or (202) 366-4198 locally in the Washington, DC area.
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