Document ID: NHTSA-2012-0091-0001
Agency: nhtsa
Document Type: Notice
Title: Traffic Records Program Assessment Advisory
Posted Date: 2012-08-17T04:00Z

[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 160 (Friday, August 17, 2012)]
[Notices]
[Pages 49859-49860]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-20249]

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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

[Docket No. NHTSA-2012-0091]

Proposed Traffic Records Program Assessment Advisory

AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 
Department of Transportation (DOT).

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: This notice announces the publication of the Traffic Records 
Program Assessment Advisory, DOT HS 811 644, which provides guidance to 
States on the collection, management, and analysis of data used to 
inform highway and traffic safety decision-making. States need timely, 
accurate, complete, and uniform traffic records to identify and 
prioritize traffic safety issues and to choose appropriate 
countermeasures and evaluate their effectiveness. This document 
provides information on the contents, capabilities, and data quality 
attributes of an effective traffic records system, and includes 
assessment questions that qualified independent assessors can use to 
evaluate the capabilities of a State's traffic records system.

DATES: Written comments may be submitted to this agency and must be 
received no later than October 16, 2012.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments identified by DOT Docket ID number 
NHTSA-2011-0044 by any of the following methods:
     Electronic Submissions: Go to http://www.regulations.gov. 
Follow the online instructions for submitting comments.
     Fax: 202-366-2746.
     Mail: Docket Management Facility, M-30 U.S. Department of 
Transportation, West Building, Ground floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New 
Jersey Ave. SE., Washington, DC 20590.

[[Page 49860]]

     Hand Delivery or Courier: Docket Management Facility, M-30 
U.S. Department of Transportation, West Building, Ground floor, Room 
W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE., Washington, DC 20590, between 9 a.m. 
and 5 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday, except Federal 
holidays.
    Regardless of how you submit your comments, you should identify the 
Docket number of this document.
    Instructions: For detailed instructions on submitting comments and 
additional information, see http://www.regulations.gov. Note that all 
comments received will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided. 
Please read the ``Privacy Act'' heading below.
    Privacy Act: Anyone is able to search the electronic form of all 
contents received into any of our dockets by the name of the individual 
submitting the comment (or signing the comment, if submitted on behalf 
of an association, business, labor union, etc.). You may review the 
complete User Notice and Privacy Notice for Regulations.gov at http://www.regulations.gov/search/footer/privacyanduse.jsp.
    Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or 
comments received, go to http://www.regulations.gov at any time or to 
West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., 
Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Eastern Time, Monday through 
Friday, except Federal holidays.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For programmatic issues: John Siegler, 
Office of Traffic Records and Analysis, NVS-423, National Highway 
Traffic Safety Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., Washington, 
DC 20590. Telephone (202) 366-1268. For legal issues: Roland Baumann, 
Office of Chief Counsel, NCC-113, National Highway Traffic Safety 
Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., Washington, DC 20590. 
Telephone (202) 366-5260.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Timely, accurate, complete, and uniform 
traffic records data is needed to identify and prioritize traffic 
safety issues, and choose appropriate countermeasures and evaluate 
their effectiveness. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 
published the Traffic Records Program Assessment Advisory (DOT HS 811 
644) to provides guidance to States on the collection, management and 
analysis of data from the crash, driver, vehicle, roadway, citation and 
adjudication, and injury surveillance databases.
    This document describes the capabilities of traffic records systems 
and includes a set of questions, which are the basis for an in-depth 
formal review of State highway safety data and State traffic records 
systems. Specifically, these questions examine how the State Traffic 
Records Coordinating Committee (TRCC) collects, manages, and integrates 
information on the crash, driver, vehicle, roadway, citation and 
adjudication, and injury surveillance databases. This assessment 
instrument was created in response to the GAO recommendation (GAO-10-
454) that ``NHTSA take steps to ensure state traffic records 
assessments are complete and consistent to provide an in-depth 
evaluation of all state traffic safety data systems across all 
performance measures''.
    During a traffic records assessment, assessors will evaluate the 
response to each question. Per the Advisory, the system being evaluated 
will be deemed to be: (1) Meeting the description of the ideal traffic 
records system, (2) partially meeting the ideal description, or (3) not 
meeting the ideal description. These assessments will identify the 
strengths and weaknesses of each component of the State's traffic 
records systems and provide the State with an overview of the current 
status of their traffic records program that can be used to benchmark 
improvement efforts. In addition, NHTSA will aggregate this data to 
examine the strengths and weaknesses of traffic records systems 
nationally. The full text of the Traffic Records Program Assessment 
Advisory, DOT HS 811 644, is available at http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811644.pdf.

Terry T. Shelton,
Associate Administrator, National Center for Statistics and Analysis.
[FR Doc. 2012-20249 Filed 8-16-12; 8:45 am]
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