15-Minute
Presentation: Fatality Analysis
Reporting System (FARS)
This site is run by NHTSA, which decided in 1996 to make Fatality Statistics available via the web. The site is set up well, utilizing attention grabbers on the home page to let you know the serious these statistics are. For example there is a section called “Did You Know?” which gives a statistic that is little known. For the 29th of April the statistic was:
“The proportion of vehicles that rolled over in fatal crashes (18.0 percent) was almost 5 times as high as the proportion in injury crashes (3.7 percent) and 15 times as high as the proportion in property-damage-only crashes” (1.2 percent). (Reference: 1994 Annual Report)
Below the “Did You Know” section are National Statistics on vehicle crashes and injuries, to include fatalities. The years covered are from 1994 to 1999. An example of statistics is that in 1999 there was an average of 15.26 fatalities per 100,000 people. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but if you consider there are about 225 million people in the U.S. that comes out to a greater number than first suspected. Following this there are likes fact sheets to include such subjects as alcohol, children, large trucks, motorcycles, older population to name a few. There is also a link to the “Traffic Safety Facts 1999 Annual Report.”
What was interesting was the navigation tool located at the bottom of the page. It is a car dashboard and depending on where you press on this dashboard it takes you to a certain place within the site. It is pretty self-explanatory, but I could see how someone might get confused, but only if they’re new to the web.
To the left of the page is the usual array of links to within the site. It is separated into four categories: Main, Reports, Query and Requests. In the Main box one can go back to the home page. The next link takes you to the “Did You Know” archive. This page allows a person to look through little known fact dealing with crashes, pedestrians and children to name a few. This was a very interesting part of the site as it throws little facts at you and one starts to realize the gravity of our national crash numbers. Next is a link to an acronym page which was helpful because some of the terms were new and without an explanation for them I feel I would have been totally lost. The terms box links the person to operational definitions which are being used by the site. This was probably one of the most important sections of the site because it gives every person a base and common terminology of which to work with.
The second link section, named “Reports” takes the individual to one of five sections, to include Trends, Crashes, Vehicles, People and States. The interesting part about this is if the cursor is placed over one of the five sections, a drop down list appears and the individual can then select from a number of different categories within, say for instance, crashes. One can look up statistics on crashes dealing with drivers. Listed within that page are the percentage of accidents attributed to a certain factor. The number one cause of crashes for drivers listed is running off of the road or crossing the center line.
Box three contain powerful on-line tools that can be used to query materials. It seems to be very advanced and unless the person is an avid user of Microsoft Access or other technical programs, one might have difficulty in dealing with this section. But, there is a tutorial on how to use the program and if one knows how to use this feature it can provide mounds of useful information for the individual.
In case this site does not have something the NHTSA offers to retrieve or to try and retrieve the information the individual needs. In the requests box, the NHTSA allows for data requests, mailing lists along with a help center. This is of great help because it provides a way to receive feed back and keep current about what type of information is needed on the page. Basically this site is designed to be a web-based encyclopedia and has a wealth of knowledge in it.
The first section I’d like to share in detail is the “Did You Know?” Section. This was one of the most interesting sections because it gave information in the form of facts that made the person aware of the current situation in terms of accidents within the nation. The main categories include children, crashes, pedestrians, people, restraint systems, school buses, states, trends and vehicles. For instance, if one clicks on “trends” then a number of bullet statements appear. An example of this follows: The non-motorist injury rate per 100,000 population has declined by 35 percent from 1988 to 1999. - [Trends ; 1999 ] . Each section has about 10-15 such bullet statements and makes for quick to the point reading, something important on the web, as anything of length is better printed out rather than read on screen.
The second section I’d like to talk about is that of the fact sheets. For this example I clicked on the alcohol fact sheet. By doing this it opened up the acrobat reader and provided a printable version of the page. Outlined in detail were all the national statistics for the subject of alcohol and vehicles for the year of 1999. For example it gave the various age groups and the number of accident and incidents each were involved in. It also covered fatalities and the alcohol content recorded in each. There is no doubt that alcohol plays a major factor in these accidents as shown by the easy to read graphs. Overall this fact sheet has proven to be useful and informative.
My overall impression of this site is that it is very comprehensive and well planned out. I think that the web lacks sites like this. The web needs more sites which concentrate less on opinion and more on the facts. If all information was categorized like this libraries would become a thing of the past.