Highway Safety: Further Opportunities Exist to Improve Data on Crashes Involving Commercial Motor Vehicles

FMCSA implemented GAO's first recommendation to establish specific guidelines for assessing state proposals for the Safety Date Improvement Program (SaDIP). Specifically, FMCSA added a new section to their grant application with specific information about how the agency intends to evaluate proposals and make awards. A review panel will now evaluate state SaDIP proposal based on 1) Goals and Objectives--the extent to which the proposal clearly articulates a safety data goal and identifies objectives that are time-limited, action-oriented, measurable, and achievable. (40% weight); 2) Feasibility and Effectiveness---the extent to which the applicant's approach is feasible and will likely result in an improvement to the state's safety data in terms of completeness, timeliness, accuracy, and consistency. This factor also includes identification of potential implementation barriers on the part of the applicant and the extent to which the project will contribute to overall national safety data quality based on accuracy and consistency (30%); 3) Cost Effectiveness--this involves a cost estimate that is commensurate with the volume of records to be improved and whether or not the project will result in continued improvement and/or sustain higher data quality for the state (30%). These specific guidelines will help FMCSA evaluate SaDIP grant applications.

GAO recommended that Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) improve the State Safety Data Quality map's usefulness as a tool for monitoring and measuring commercial motor vehicle crash data by developing a plan to assess the map's methodology and separating crash and inspection data in the overall data map. In March 2006, FMCSA developed an action plan to improve the existing State Safety Data Quality methodology. The plan includes enhancing existing measures, conducting new analysis to determine the feasibility of new measures, and evaluating current methodology and individual criteria. Further progress was made during a June 2006 Data Quality Retreat when retreat participants reached consensus on four new measures to be used in future State Safety Data Quality analysis. Further, FMCSA is currently working on creating a separate map for crash and inspection data. Finally, on its Analysis and Information (A&I) website, FMCSA has provided additional information about the limitations of the State Safety Data Quality Map and the underlying ratings.