BTS | Table 2-21: Passenger Car Occupant Safety Data

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Table 2-21: Passenger Car Occupant Safety Data

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	1975	1980	1985	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
Fatalities	25,929	27,449	23,212	24,092	22,385	21,387	21,566	21,997	22,423	22,505	22,199	21,194	20,862	^R20,699	20,233
Injured persons^E	N	N	N	2,376,439	2,234,594	2,231,703	2,264,809	2,363,595	2,469,358	2,458,080	2,340,612	2,201,375	2,137,503	2,051,609	1,926,625
Crashes^E	N	N	N	5,560,592	5,178,450	5,042,203	5,040,116	5,401,164	5,593,685	5,598,699	5,423,286	5,146,124	4,915,734	4,926,243	4,831,727
Vehicle-miles (millions)	1,030,376	1,107,056	1,248,981	1,427,178	1,411,655	1,436,035	1,445,106	1,459,208	1,478,352	1,499,139	1,528,399	1,555,901	1,566,808	^R1,580,493	1,584,612
Rates per 100 million vehicle-miles
Fatalities	2.5	2.5	1.9	1.7	1.6	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.4	1.3	1.3	1.3
Injured persons^E	N	N	N	^R166	158	155	157	162	167	164	153	141	136	130	122
Crashes^E	N	N	N	390	367	351	349	370	378	373	355	331	314	^R312	305

KEY: E = estimated; N = data do not exist; R = revised.

NOTES

The injury and crash data in this table are from the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) General Estimates System (GES). The data from GES, which began operation in 1988, are obtained from a nationally representative probability sample selected from all police-reported crashes. The GES sample includes only crashes where a police accident report was completed and the crash resulted in property damage, injury, or death. The resulting figures do not take into account crashes that were not reported to the police or that did not result in property damage. The 1993 National Transportation Statistics (NTS) Historical Compendium and earlier editions illustrated crashes and injury figures estimated by the National Safety Council, which used a different set of methods to arrive at its figures. Thus, the injury and crash figures in this edition of NTS may not be comparable with those found in the Compendium and earlier editions.

USDOT, Bureau of Transportation Statistics rounded vehicle-miles to the nearest billion.

Vehicle-miles in this table and in table 2-23 are taken from NHTSA revised data and are not based exclusively on USDOT, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) data. The change was made to reflect the different vehicle classification schemes used by FHWA. and NHTSA. Thus, vehicle-miles for passenger cars, and light and large trucks in this table and table 2-23 should not be compared with vehicle-miles in chapter 1, which are taken directly from FHWA.

SOURCES

Fatalities, injuries, vehicle miles, fatality and injury rates:

U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, National Center for Statistics and Analysis, Traffic Safety Facts 2001, DOT HS 809 484 (Washington, DC: December 2002), table 7 and personal communication, Sept. 10, 2002.

Crashes:

U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, National Center for Statistics and Analysis, Fatality Analysis Reporting System Database and General Estimates System Database, personal communication, Sept. 10, 2002.

Crash rates:

Calculated by U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics by dividing the number of crashes by the vehicle-miles traveled.