Notice2024-23099
Agency Request for Information; State Property Damage Only (PDO) Data Collection Practices
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
October 16, 2024
Issuing agencies
Transportation DepartmentNational Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Abstract
This notice requests information from interested parties to assist the agency in researching property damage only (PDO) crash data collection practices across the United States. State statutes dictate that law enforcement should complete a crash report for PDO crashes meeting a set of criteria including when damage is above a certain dollar threshold that varies by State. When a crash is below the reportable threshold, States may allow civilians to complete a crash report designed specifically for them. In some cases, jurisdictions within States have stopped collecting PDO crashes in an effort to save officer time and/or money. Other jurisdictions have stopped sending sworn officers to respond to PDO crashes. However, the impacts of these changes on crash data collection are not well documented or understood. NHTSA is seeking to identify States and jurisdictions that have modified their PDO crash reporting threshold or are using citizen or non-sworn officers to report PDO crashes, and to determine the impacts of these practices on crash data analyses and agencies' budgets and time. NHTSA seeks comments from all interested parties, including State crash data owners, highway safety offices, law enforcement, and other stakeholders to help inform NHTSA's research into State PDO crash data collection practices.
Full Text
<html>
<head>
<title>Federal Register, Volume 89 Issue 200 (Wednesday, October 16, 2024)</title>
</head>
<body><pre>
[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 200 (Wednesday, October 16, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 83545-83547]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2024-23099]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Agency Request for Information; State Property Damage Only (PDO)
Data Collection Practices
AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA),
Department of Transportation (DOT).
ACTION: Request for information.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: This notice requests information from interested parties to
assist the agency in researching property damage only (PDO) crash data
collection practices across the United States. State statutes dictate
that law enforcement should complete a crash report for PDO crashes
meeting a set of criteria including when damage is above a certain
dollar threshold that varies by State. When a crash is below the
reportable threshold, States may allow civilians to complete a crash
report designed specifically for them. In some cases, jurisdictions
within States have stopped collecting PDO crashes in an effort to save
officer time and/or money. Other jurisdictions have stopped sending
sworn officers to respond to PDO crashes. However, the impacts of these
changes on crash data collection are not well documented or understood.
NHTSA is seeking to identify States and jurisdictions that have
modified their PDO crash reporting threshold or are using citizen or
non-sworn officers to
[[Page 83546]]
report PDO crashes, and to determine the impacts of these practices on
crash data analyses and agencies' budgets and time. NHTSA seeks
comments from all interested parties, including State crash data
owners, highway safety offices, law enforcement, and other stakeholders
to help inform NHTSA's research into State PDO crash data collection
practices.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before December 16, 2024.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments using the Federal Docket Management
System Docket ID NHTSA-2024-0023 by any of the following methods:
<bullet> Federal Rulemaking Portal: Go to <a href="https://www.regulations.gov">https://www.regulations.gov</a>. Follow the online instructions for submitting
comments.
<bullet> Mail: Send comments to: Docket Management Facility, U.S.
Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building,
Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590.
<bullet> Fax: Written comments may be faxed to (202) 493-2251.
<bullet> Hand Delivery: If you plan to submit written comments by
hand or courier, please do so at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West
Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590 between 9
a.m. and 5 p.m. eastern time, Monday through Friday, except Federal
holidays.
Please submit all comments to the Docket by December 16, 2024.
When you submit your comments, please remember to mention the
agency and the docket number of this document within your
correspondence. Please note that all comments received will be posted
without change to <a href="https://www.regulations.gov">https://www.regulations.gov</a>, including any personal
information provided. Please see the ``Privacy Act'' heading below.
Privacy Act: Anyone can search the electronic form of all comments
received into any of our dockets by the name of the individual
submitting the comments (or signing the comments, if submitted on
behalf of an association, business, labor union, etc.). You may review
DOT's complete Privacy Act Statement in the Federal Register published
on April 11, 2000 (65 FR 19477-78) or at <a href="https://www.transportation.gov/privacy">https://www.transportation.gov/privacy</a>.
Confidential Information: If you wish to submit any information
under a claim of confidentiality, you should submit three copies of
your complete submission, including the information you claim to be
confidential business information, to the Chief Counsel, NHTSA, 1200
New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590. In addition, you should
submit two copies, from which you have deleted the claimed confidential
business information, to Docket Management at the address given above
under ADDRESSES. When you send a comment containing information claimed
to be confidential business information, you should include a cover
letter setting forth the information specified in our confidential
business information regulation (49 CFR part 512).
Docket: For access to the docket to read the proposed changes to
MMUCC, background documents, or comments received, go to <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">http://www.regulations.gov</a> at any time and follow the online instructions for
accessing the dockets. Or go to West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-
140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590, between 9 a.m.
and 5 p.m., Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, except Federal
holidays.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Please contact Beau Burdett, National
Center for Statistics and Analysis, NHTSA (telephone: 202-366-7338 or
email: <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#2f4d4a4e5a014d5a5d4b4a5b5b6f4b405b01484059"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="3c5e595d49125e494e585948487c585348125b534a">[email protected]</span></a>).
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: From a national perspective, data
comparability among States is important to practitioners' understanding
of trends and countermeasure effectiveness. However, the United States
does not have a single, uniform crash reporting standard. Fatal crashes
are reported to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) using a
uniform set of data elements and case-inclusion criteria. A common way
that States code crash severity is using the KABCO scale. KABCO is an
abbreviation for the different levels of injury severity: Killed (fatal
injury), A-level (suspected serious) injury, B-level (suspected minor)
injury, C-level (possible) injury, or Property Damage Only (no injury).
Though not all States use the KABCO scale, all are required to use a
uniform definition for both fatalities and serious (A-level) injuries.
The Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Safety Performance
Management Measures (23 CFR part 490) and the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration's (NHTSA) Uniform Procedures for State Highway
Safety Grant Programs (23 CFR part 1300) establish a single, national
definition for States to report serious (A-level) injuries per the
Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria (MMUCC). MMUCC supplies voluntary
standard definitions of other crash severity levels (B- and C-level
injuries, and property damage only--PDO).
Crash reporting criteria vary widely among States, especially
concerning PDO crashes. Variations include differences in reporting
threshold amounts, the use of full or abbreviated reports, the
reporter's identity (sworn officers, non-law enforcement investigators,
or citizens), and factors other than monetary value, like towaway
necessity. The impact of practice variations on crash data quality,
particularly PDO reporting, is unclear.
To better understand State PDO data collection practices NHTSA
began a research project. To date the research project has compiled
State PDO thresholds as outlined in State statutes for the past 15
years, investigated the use of abbreviated reports for PDO crashes, and
conducted a literature review on the extent and costs of PDO crashes,
crash reporting thresholds, and alternatives to PDO reporting by sworn
officers. The next phase of this research effort moves from examining
existing literature and State statutes on PDO data collection practices
to speaking with select States and agencies regarding their practices
and conducting crash data analyses to investigate the impact of
different PDO data collection practices on data quality and safety
analyses.
This notice requests information from interested parties, including
State crash data owners, highway safety offices, law enforcement, and
other stakeholders to assist NHTSA in conducting research to
investigate different PDO crash data collection practices across the
United States and the impacts of these PDO data collection practices
(e.g., economic impacts such as cost or time savings, impacts to
traffic safety analyses, impacts to vulnerable road users, etc.). NHTSA
plans to utilize the information provided under this Request for
Information to enhance and support the development of the next phase in
the research project.
Request for Information
The agency is interested in information that would help develop and
implement the next phase of research into State PDO data collection
practices. This includes information about States' PDO thresholds (the
research team is examining all changes in the property-damage aspects
of reporting thresholds: changes in the minimum dollar amount of
damage, changes from a dollar-amount threshold to a towaway threshold,
and elimination of the threshold altogether); the use of citizen/driver
report forms; and whether States utilize non-sworn officers to report
PDO crashes. NHTSA hereby seeks further information based on the below
questions. This list is not exhaustive, and we encourage commenters to
provide any further
[[Page 83547]]
information that they believe is relevant to inform the agency as it
seeks to conduct the next phase of research into State PDO data
collection practices.
(1) How does your State/jurisdiction determine if a crash report
came from a sworn law enforcement officer or from a non-sworn officer?
a. Ideally, this would be a data element in the crash report
database showing the type of person who generated the report/data. If
there are codes for sworn officer, non-sworn officer, and citizen
(involved party), that would answer this question and Question #3 as
well. However, having the indicator for sworn or non-sworn is important
for this first question. Does your crash database include a data
element that supports this?
b. Officer badge number could be a second possible way to
differentiate crash reports from sworn- versus non-sworn officers. Do
you have badge numbers in the crash report/crash database and badge
number lists identifying the type of officer (sworn versus non-sworn)?
c. Can you provide information on any training differences for
sworn versus non-sworn officers related to their crash reporting
processes, knowledge, or duties?
(2) Can your State supply summary statistics of crash data
surrounding the most recent change in the crash reporting threshold
(i.e., the frequency of crashes before and after the change)?
a. We are most concerned with threshold changes in the past 15
years (i.e., 2009 or more recent). We would hope to get the frequency
of crashes for each KABCO severity for 5 years before and after the
change. If your State changed its threshold in 2009, for example, we
would ask for data from two periods: 2004 to 2008, and 2009 to 2013.
Based on that example, can your system supply summary statistics of
crash data for the period 5 years before and 5 years after the last
threshold change?
b. If the reporting threshold change took place mid-year (rather
than on January 1st), we would need to know the implementation date for
the change. In that case, we would like to receive the frequency of
crashes for the year the change took place plus data for 5 years before
and 5 years after the change (11 years' data total, including the
change year). Can your system provide data to meet that request?
c. If it has been fewer than 5 years since your most recent
threshold change, can you provide any available post-change crash
frequency data and can we also obtain the crash frequency for 5 years
before that change?
d. If there has been more than one change in threshold in the past
15 years, can you please describe the before- and after-change periods
for each of the successive threshold changes and tell us if crash
frequency data would be available for those periods?
(3) Does your State use citizen/driver report forms for crash
reporting?
a. How does your State collect the data from crash-involved
persons?
b. How is the data from these reports stored? Specifically, is it
added to the statewide crash database and, if so, are those reports
tagged in some way to indicate that the data comes from a citizen/
driver report?
c. How is the data from citizen/driver reports used? Specifically,
is it used in safety analyses and, if so, which types of analyses
(e.g., safety analyses of locations, analyses of driver contributing
factors, indications of belt use, other)?
d. If a crash results in both a report written by a law enforcement
officer (sworn or non-sworn) and a citizen report, are both versions
stored in the statewide crash database? Are both used in safety
analyses? Are the data blended from both sources (and if so, how)?
This notice is for information purposes only. The agency will
review and consider information provided in response to this notice as
it conducts the next phase of research into State PDO data collection
practices but will not respond to comments.
Chou-Lin Chen,
Associate Administrator for the National Center for Statistics and
Analysis.
[FR Doc. 2024-23099 Filed 10-15-24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-59-P
</pre><script data-cfasync="false" src="/cdn-cgi/scripts/5c5dd728/cloudflare-static/email-decode.min.js"></script></body>
</html>Indexed from Federal Register on October 16, 2024.
This is legal information, not legal advice. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always verify current law with official sources and consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for advice on your specific situation.