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March 17, 2007
FATAL ACCIDENT DATA BEING SUPPRESSED?
An investigative report in the Los Angeles Times says that NHTSA’s “culture of secrecy” is discouraging publication of data revealing “dangerous intersections and hazardous freeway segments” where fatal accidents are occurring. “Such information is readily available, but the federal government won't let the public have it,” the report concludes.
It documents the experience of a highway safety researcher who discovered a few years ago that federal regulators were collecting the global coordinates of fatal accidents, linking them to its FARS database, and publishing them on its website. “He downloaded the data to his computer, but a few days later it was gone from the website. He called the agency and explained that the data had disappeared and he would like the agency to repost it. Officials called the posting a mistake and said he should erase it from his own computer, he recalled.”
Eventually he filed a FOIA request with the agency. Its rejection said that "the disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." “Exactly how a set of coordinates would invade a dead person's privacy was not made clear. Police routinely release the names of fatal-accident victims,” the newspaper noted.
“The FARS database already contains the highway number and mileage marker of fatal accidents, but having the exact Earth coordinates allows the data to be analyzed more systematically,” it also noted. It added that the issue is similar to the battle presently going on over the NHTSA’s refusal to release some vehicle safety information it obtains under the TREAD Act. (For earlier coverage, see the August, 2006 Current Development Archive.)
Posted by MVHAP at March 17, 2007 02:20 PM