The following Web sites were mentioned in various handouts discussing CAR and the transportation beat.
Air
Airsafe Financial - http://airsafe.com This site lists airline safety information for the airline passenger and contains various aircraft accident data.
Daily Airline Filings - http://airline info.com This site offers the full text of regulatory filings by airlines.
Federal Aviation Administration Office of System Safety - http://nasdac.faa.gov The site will allow you to access aircraft accident data and a myriad of other databases, including the NTSB Aviation Accident/Incident Database, the Aviation Safety Reporting System, the Near Midair Collisions System (NMACS) Database, NTSB Safety Recommendations to the FAA with FAA Responses, the International Safety Recommendations Database, and the Aviation Safety Statistical Handbook.
Landings.com - www.landings.com This privately maintained site has the blessing of the FAA and the private blessings of dozens of reporters. Among the databases you'll find sophisticated searches of FAA regulations, Canadian regulations, AIM, the Pilot Controller Glossary, Service Difficulty Reports, Airworthiness Alerts, NTSB Briefs, N-Numbers and the FAA Airmen knowledge test information.
Rail
Federal Railroad Administration - www.fra.dot.gov The FRA site is your one-stop shop for railroad accident data. Who hit what and when and how, and sometimes even why. Not on its Web site, however, are the "PC Accident Prediction System" and rail crossing inventory databases. The "Accident Prediction System" is a searchable database that assigns an accident prediction to all public rail crossings nationwide. (The prediction system is available on CD-ROM.) The rail-crossing inventory is a database with specific information on all public rail grade crossings nationwide.
Road
Fatality Analysis Reporting System The FARS is a database that theoretically contains detailed information about every fatal accident on the nation's roads. Because it relies upon local police departments, FARS is actually not that complete, but it's the best national picture of what's killing us on the highways. Some fields are the result of interpretation by traffic analysts, so be careful making judgments.
Federal Highway Administration - www.fhwa.dot.gov
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety - www.huysafety.org A good source of studies on urban crashes, red-light cameras and insurance-related issues. Offers other links to road-related sites.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration - www.nhtsa.dot.gov Look for the Crashworthiness Data System for in-depth crash investigations. See the Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System, a relatively obscure NHTSA database that tracks the outcome of accidents, medical bills, etc. This information is usually hard to get because it's only collected by insurance companies, which are not public entities. Under the "CARS" link, see the downloadable collection of databases on consumer complaints, recalls, and Technical Service Bulletins (minor fix-it-for-free notices by car companies). The records detail whether injuries, deaths or property damage resulted from the problem that prompted the complaint.
Other
Bureau of Transportation Statistics - www.bts.gov The granddaddy of all free transportation database collections. Get information on waterways, rail, roads, accidents, travel, you name it - and everything is free. See the National Personal Transportation Survey at www.bts.gov/ntdaln.pts for measures of travel by American households. BTS is developing less esoteric measures of transportation and exploring new ways to visualize data.