Jerrod KingeryThe National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wants to make data on crashes more accurate and accessible.
To accomplish this, NHTSA is offering $171 million in grants to 19 states and territories to upgrade and standardize their crash data systems.
These grants, part of the State Electronic Data Collection program, will fund upgrades to improve the accuracy, timeliness and accessibility of fatality information. That data will also include information about pedestrians and cyclists.
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The awards have been granted to American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia.
Officials say the program will advance the Department of Transportation’s National Roadway Safety Strategy, which works to significantly reduce serious injuries and deaths on the nation’s roadways by using data to make better decisions.
This strategy focuses on the idea that people will make mistakes on the road but builds a holistic system to make sure those mistakes don’t result in a fatality. NHTSA says more data coming in will enable them to put it to work to develop effective and responsive strategies, as well as countermeasures, research, rules and campaigns to better educate drivers, pedestrians and cyclists.
“These grants will provide much-needed funds for states and territories to upgrade their systems and make sharing data with NHTSA quicker and easier,” NHTSA Deputy Administrator Sophie Shulman said in a press release. “These upgrades to crash data systems will provide the agency and the public more timely data, help us identify emerging trends, and advance our shared mission to save lives.”
Image by Netto Figueiredo from Pixabay
