Every day, about 115 people die on the roads in the United States. Naturally, a government agency keeps track. The result is the Fatal Accident Reporting System, a database you can sift for many kinds of trend stories. Traffic analysts in every state compile the database for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration using police accident reports, driver license and vehicle registration files, coroner's reports, death certificates and other documents. FARS includes any motor vehicle accident on a public roadway that results in a death of a person within 30 days.
At the Asbury Park Press, FARS enabled us to produce "Collision Course," a two-part series on older drivers. Teaming up with a reporter writing about a special prosecutor's task force on fatal crashes, I acquired 1988-95 data from NICAR. Our circulation area includes Ocean County, N.J., a popular suburban retirement area where 1 in 4 people are 65 years of age or older, and where driving is virtually a matter of survival.
There was:
The 70-year-old man who gambled all night in an Atlantic City casino, fell asleep at the wheel on the way home and collided head-on with a young couple, killing them.
The 61-year-old man who took his eyes off the road and mowed down a school crossing guard.
The 82-year-old woman who left her car parked with the engine running and was run over by it.
Detecting trends
Were these just anecdotal shockers, isolated incidents, or part of a trend? That's what we wanted to know from FARS. On a national, state and local level, it turned out, the percentage of fatal crashes involving a senior driver had increased since 1988. Census figures helped confirm that the increase outpaced the overall aging of the driving population.
Advocates for the elderly argued that young drivers were just as menacing, or worse. We needed to compare all drivers on an equal footing.
To do that, I first grouped 1994 fatal crashes by driver age. Then I found travel estimates by driver age in the 1990 National Personal Transportation Survey, the latest year available. (New figures were collected last year but have not been released yet.) And from the Federal Highway Administration's Internet site, I snagged 1994 licensed driver totals by age group for each state.
I plugged all the figures into a spreadsheet. The result: Fatal crash rates for New Jersey drivers, measured by miles driven, increased sharply after age 65.
Last, we gathered projections by Census and transportation officials showing the implications for the future, when many more seniors will be behind the wheel. We also addressed ways that drivers and regulators are dealing with the changes.
Not just numbers
The records don't give you the names of people in the accidents. But because there are fields that identify people by age, gender, "person type" (driver, passenger, pedestrian etc.), and which car they were in, it's easy to match the records to crash stories from your paper's archives or to public records. Reporter Bill Heine and I identified several compelling cases and used interviews as well as police reports, municipal court documents and drivers' histories to round out our vignettes.
You can get at what caused the crash by looking at the field that contains "driver-related factors." Codes from 00 through 99 reveal, among other things, whether drivers were drowsy, inattentive, reckless, intoxicated, disabled, using a car phone, or fleeing police.
Other fields detail the accident's date and time, the extent of injuries, the time span between the accident and the victim's death, seatbelt and airbag use, whether a school bus was involved, and whether drivers had recent prior crashes or speeding tickets.
FARS doesn't do a great job telling where the accident happened. There is a field with the road name (called "idyfer," in NICAR's version of the data), but no intersection field. There's a milepoint field that's useful if the crash was on a toll road or other major highway.
Other limitations involve issues of timing. FARS analysts build the database from local police reports, and some issues are still unresolved when those reports are filled out, such as whether charges were brought against the driver, and how many people died.
Also, the database's crash totals can conflict with local and state figures because of the 30-day policy noted above. If someone dies 32 days later, your state may count it as fatal.
NHTSA analysts were responsive and helpful when I had questions. The agency has information summarizing the database and how to order it on the Internet at www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/ncsa/fars.html
Rick Linsk can be reached at (908) 922-6000, ext. 4360, or by email at linsk@app.com