LIMITATIONS OF THE CURRENT NASS SYSTEM AS RELATED TO FHWA ACCIDENT RESEARCH

The highway-related researcher who is interested in using the NASS system first must (a) carefully think through the problem of interest to him or her, (b) must decide how to compromise on the number of factors that might possibly be of interest, (c) must define variables as specifically as possible and must provide adequate training for the data collectors and (d) must ensure a method of good quality control for the data while they are being collected. Thus, as it currently exists, the NASS system may be of limited use to the highway accident researcher. To make this system of greater use to FHWA and other highway researchers, however, will require major changes. The biggest requirement is that good exposure data must be collected and must be merged with the accident data now being collected. There is a need to periodically review the system to be sure that data items that are not being used are culled out in order to decrease the number of unused items and increase the quality of those that are collected. Finally, as a suggested major change in the system, I would suggest that the NASS system as it now exists be scrapped, or rather modified, as a system that, instead of monitoring accidents, monitors highway segments. By sampling from all the segments across the nation and monitoring certain of these segments, accident data could be collected from accidents that occur on these segments and exposure data could be collected at the same time. This would change the nature of the NASS system in that those teams that are currently at one location pulling accidents from one set of files would become "traveling salesmen" who would travel in a larger geographic area to continually monitor numerous segments of highway. It is obvious that the problems with changing the system to this new format would be very formidable. However, drastic changes like this should be carefully considered in order to make this system as useful as it possibly can be for the researcher interested in the highway side of the accident problem. (Author)

• Record URL:
  https://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trcircular/256/256-017.pdf
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00978515
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper appeared in Transportation Research Circular No. 256, Evaluation of Severity of Collisions with Roadside Features: Data Needs. Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Cirillo, J A
• Publication Date: 1983-3

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Pagination: p. 20-21
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Circular
  • Issue Number: 256
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0097-8515

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Applications; Crash exposure; Crash investigation; Data collection; Recommendations
• Identifier Terms: National Accident Sampling System
• Uncontrolled Terms: Change
• Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Research; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment; I21: Planning of Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00373051
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: HS-035 154
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Jun 30 1983 12:00AM