Seven New States Get Funding for Technical Assistance Tracking Costs of Motor Vehicle Crashes
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Rodney E. Slater today announced new cooperative agreements, valued at more than $1.5 million, with organizations in seven states so they can develop tools to better track the costs of motor vehicle crashes and determine who pays these costs.
Organizations in Connecticut, Maryland, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota will receive funds from the department's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) as a result of the new cooperative agreements for the project, which is called CODES (Crash Outcome Data Evaluation Systems).
"Safety is President Clinton's highest transportation priority. We are asking states to strengthen their traffic laws and toughen enforcement as a means of reducing the number of traffic crashes, injuries and fatalities," said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater. "CODES means states won't need a secret decoder to figure out the costs of motor vehicle crashes."
CODES uses statistically-based techniques to link crash data with medical information, such as hospital discharge, emergency medical service and hospital emergency department data. The systems help states by linking data so that it is available to them to identify specific crash, vehicle and behavior characteristics that lead to increased risk of injury, severity and high health care costs in their states. Applications for this information then can be developed to support state-specific decision-making.
" Motor vehicle crashes cost the nation more than $150 billion every year, yet most jurisdictions do not now have the capability to identify costs of crashes or evaluate the effectiveness of measures to prevent crashes and injuries. A substantial portion of crash costs are paid by tax dollars."
NHTSA Administrator Ricardo Martinez, M.D., said. "CODES will help states identify the costs of crashes and assess the effectiveness of their crash prevention measures. If you can't find your problem, you can't fix it."
The agreements announced today are the second CODES award. The seven original CODES states, Hawaii, Maine, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Wisconsin, who were not eligible for this project, continue to implement their CODES.
The new participating organizations in CODES and the amounts are:
Connecticut Department of Public Health $201,215
Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene $246,183
University of Nevada School of Medicine, Department of Surgery $235,433
New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services $238,619
North Dakota Department of Transportation $195,464
Oklahoma Highway Safety Office $250,339
University of South Dakota, Business Research Bureau $201,778
Please
send any comments to:
ncsaweb@nhtsa.dot.gov
Return to CODES Main Page
Return to NCSA Welcome
Page
Return to NCSA
Main Page