The report describes and discusses in some detail the accident investigation programs of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) from 1968 through 1987. The initial accident research activities involved Medico-Engineering Teams who performed clinical investigations of selected crashes of interest. From the clinical, in-depth investigations, NHTSA progressed to Special Studies and the Tri-level Studies in order to obtain greater volumes of data. The first multi-site projects were the Restraint Systems Evaluation Project (RSEP) and the National Crash Severity Study (NCSS), which were forerunners to one of NHTSA's present programs - the National Accident Sampling System (NASS). The Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS) was also initiated in the mid-1970's. FARS (still ongoing) is a census file of all motor vehicle crashes that occur on a public roadway and result in a fatality within 30 days of the crash. The latter sections of the report describe recent changes in the NASS program and go into detail on the design of two parts of NASS - the Crashworthiness Data System (CDS) and the General Estimates System (GES).
Historical Review of NHTSA's (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's) Field Accident Investigation Activities
1988
57 pages
Report
No indication
English
Transportation Safety , Road Transportation , Transportation , Accident investigations , Accident research , Collision research , Research management , Restraint systems , Highway safety , National Highway Traffic Safety Administration , Accident statistics , Accident analysis , Accident studies , Crashworthiness