Fatal accidents on Interstate 80 in Iowa are seen in a different light these days.

Here's how another reporter at the newspaper I work for closed a routine news story about an accident that killed two people in a four-vehicle accident that include a semitrailer truck:

"A Gazette investigation published in November showed that nearly half the fatal accidents on I-80 from 1994 through 2001 involved semi-trailer trucks. Of the 133 fatal accidents, 62 involved semis. In all, 84 people died in the crashes involving semis."

It was rewarding to see that paragraph.

"Danger Zone," the package of stories it referred to, resulted from months of research, database analysis, more than a few dead ends and a fair amount of uncertainty. The package included stories from KCRG, our affiliated television station, and an online package with animated graphics.

The stories explained how increasing traffic volumes, basic physics and the way drivers of cars behave behind the wheel all contribute to fatal accidents involving semis. Big trucks can't stop as quickly as a car, nor can semi drivers steer out of trouble.

Some people have told me they've changed their driving habits. That's even more rewarding than seeing the conclusions of "Danger Zone" repeated in a short story about a fatality.

My reporting started with a suggestion from a retired Gazette reporter who had just returned from a long trip: Look into the way cars and trucks interact on the road. He thought we might learn something from truck inspection reports. But that wasn't as helpful as examining FARS, the federal government's Fatality Analysis Reporting System.

The Gazette bought the data covering 1994 to 2001 on CD-ROM from the IRE and NICAR Database Library. I set out to find a story - whatever it might be.

I began by examining outdated reports based on FARS from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and localizing them for Iowa. I looked at how other news organizations had studied cars, trucks and roads. I tried to get trade groups and federal agencies to put me in touch with their researchers, to get coaching and to test some of the queries I created in Microsoft Access.

One of those queries turned up a hot spot with more fatal accidents than any other part of Interstate 80 in Iowa: rural Cedar County, about 40 miles southeast of Cedar Rapids. County traffic volumes have increased to 33,000 vehicles daily from 22,000 in a little more than a dozen years. Every third vehicle there is a heavy truck.

My Internet searches led me to a question about highway traffic deaths that I thought I could resolve: Who's to blame for fatal crashes involving trucks and cars? The Los Angeles Times reported that truckers are at fault in about half of all California large-truck crashes. Yet an American Automobile Association study fixes more blame on automobile drivers. Advocacy groups fall on both sides of the argument.

My contact with other journalists across the country led me to Daniel Blower of the Transportation Research Institute at the University of Michigan. He warned that the increase of accidents in Cedar County - 15 of 19 fatal accidents on I-80 in eight years had involved semis - could be the result of chance alone. He also pointed out that the FARS data does not disclose who is to blame.

But from studying more detailed accident data, Blower has concluded that actions by passenger vehicle drivers contribute more often to fatal crashes than do the actions of the truck drivers.

So I returned to the computer and ran more queries, this time concentrating on particular roads. By comparing a database containing only fatal accidents in which semis were involved (developed with help from our corporate trainer, Steve Cope) against the entire FARS database for Iowa, a major finding finally jumped out of the numbers. Nearly half the fatalities on I-80 in the eight-year study period involved semitrailer trucks. No other rural interstate in Iowa had such a high proportion of accidents or such a high percentage of use by trucks.

As I told KCRG reporter/anchor Renee Chu, "The accidents involving trucks occur where the trucks are." Chu interviewed me on camera about my findings for one of her stories.

During my reporting I found a former truck driver who had left the business after having been involved in a fatal accident four years ago on I-80 in Cedar County. I also found the family of a woman who in January 2000 was killed on another segment of I-80 in Cedar County. I wanted to tell about an accident from the viewpoint of the trucker, and from the viewpoint of the family of a victim.

Both the Gazette and KCRG gained from teaming up for the "Danger Zone" project.

"The joint project allowed the station to have access to concrete data that we would typically not devote the time and resources to uncover," Chu said.

"It also allowed us to convey relevant safety information that affects every person who drives."

The televised report received positive responses, primarily from people whose loved ones worked as truckers and those who are tired of drivers who disregard trucks on the highway.

The Gazette, meanwhile, gained from the exposure on television.

But Iowans may have gained the most from the stories that showed how traffic on part of the interstate system had neared its capacity.

Contact Kurt Rogahn by e-mail at Kurt.Rogahn@gazettecommunications.com.