Table 2-2:  Injured Persons by Transportation Mode

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KEY:  N = data do not exist; P = preliminary; R = revised; U = data are not available.

^a Injuries classified as serious. See definitions of injuries in the glossary.

^b All scheduled and nonscheduled service operating under 14 CFR 121. Since March 20, 1997, 14 CFR 121 includes only aircraft with 10 or more seats formerly operated under 14 CFR 135. This change makes it difficult to compare pre-1997 data for 14 CFR 121 and 14 CFR 135 with more recent years' data.

^c All scheduled service operating under 14 CFR 135 (commuter air carriers). Before March 20, 1997, 14 CFR 135 applied to aircraft with 30 or fewer seats. Since March 20, 1997, 14 CFR 135 includes only aircraft with fewer than 10 seats. This change makes it difficult to compare pre-1997 data for 14 CFR 121 and 14 CFR 135 with more recent years' data.

^d Nonscheduled service operating under 14 CFR 135 (on-demand air taxis).

^e All operations other than those operating under 14 CFR 121 and 14 CFR 135.

^f Large trucks are defined as trucks over 10,000 pounds gross vehicle weight rating, including single-unit trucks and truck tractors. Light trucks are defined as trucks of 10,000 pounds gross vehicle weight rating or less, including pickups, vans, truck-based station wagons, and utility vehicles.

^g Includes occupants of other unknown vehicle types and other nonmotorists.

^h Includes Amtrak. Figures include those injuries resulting from train accidents, train incidents, and nontrain incidents. Injury figures also include occupational illness. Railroad injuries data for 1970 and before are not comparable with post-1970 data due to change in reporting system. Highway-rail grade crossing injuries are counted under highway, except train occupants.

ⁱ Includes motor bus, commuter rail, heavy rail, light rail, demand responsive, van pool, and automated guideway. Transit injuries include those resulting from all reportable incidents, not just from accidents.

^j Vessel-related injuries include those involving damage to vessels, such as collisions or groundings. Injuries not related to vessel casualties include those from falls overboard or from accidents involving onboard equipment.

^k 1992-2001 data come from the Marine Safety Management Information System and 2002 data come from the Marine Information for Safety and Law Enforcement System. Data for prior years come from other sources and may not be directly comparable.

NOTE

The motor vehicle injury data in this table come from the U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's 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 did not result in property damage. The 1993 National Transportation Statistics (NTS) Historical Compendium and earlier editions used injury figures estimated by the National Safety Council, which used a different set of methods to arrive at its figures. Thus, the injury figures in this edition of NTS may not be comparable with those found in the Compendium and earlier editions.

Numbers may not add to totals because some injuries are counted in more than one mode. To avoid double counting, the following adjustments have been made in the total injured row:

most (not all) highway-rail grade crossing injuries have not been added because most (not all) such injuries involve motor vehicles and are already included in highway injuries;

for transit, all commuter rail injuries and motor-bus, trolley-bus, demand-responsive, and van-pool injuries arising from accidents have been subtracted because they are counted as railroad, highway, or highway-rail grade crossing injuries.

The reader cannot reproduce the total injuries count in this table by simply leaving out the number of highway-rail grade crossing injuries in the sum and subtracting the above transit submodes, because in so doing, grade-crossing injuries not involving motor vehicles would be left out (see table 2-35 on rail). An example of such an injury is a bicyclist injured by a train at a grade crossing.

SOURCE

Air:

U.S. air carrier:

1970-94: National Transportation Safety Board, Annual Review of Aircraft Accident Data: U.S. Air Carrier Operations (Washington, DC: Annual issues).

1995-2002: Ibid., Analysis and Data Division, personal communications, Aug. 8, 1996, Mar. 10, 1999, March 23, 2000, May 7, 2002, Sept. 11, 2002, and May 5, 2003.

Commuter carrier, and on-demand air taxi:

1980-94: National Transportation Safety Board, Annual Review of Aircraft Accident Data: U.S. Air Carrier Operations (Washington, DC: Annual issues).

1995-2002: Ibid., Analysis and Data Division, personal communications, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, May 7, 2002, Sept. 11, 2002, and May 5, 2003.

General aviation:

1970-94: National Transportation Safety Board, Annual Review of Aircraft Accident Data: General Aviation (Washington, DC: Annual issues).

1995-2002: Ibid., Analysis and Data Division, personal communications, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, May 7, 2002, Sept. 11, 2002, and May 5, 2003.

Highway:

1990-99: U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, National Center for Statistics and Analysis, Traffic Safety Facts 1999, DOT HS 809 100 (Washington, DC: December 2000), table 4.

2000-02: Ibid., General Estimates System Database and personal communication, Dec. 9, 2003.

Rail:

Highway-rail grade crossings:

1960-70: National Safety Council, Accident Facts, 1974 (Washington, DC: 1974).

1975: U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration, Office of Policy and Program Development, personal communication.

1980-91: Ibid., Rail-Highway Crossing Accident/Incident and Inventory Bulletin (Washington, DC: Annual issues), table S.

1991-2001: Ibid., Railroad Safety Statistics Annual Report 2001 (Washington, DC: July 2003), tables 1-1 and 8-13, available at Internet site http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety.

2002: Ibid., Preliminary data available at Internet site http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/Prelim/2002/r01.htm as of Dec. 3, 2003.

Railroad:

1960-70: National Safety Council, Accident Facts, 1974 (Washington, DC: 1974).

1970-91: U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration, Highway-Rail Crossing Accident/Incident and Inventory Bulletin (Washington, DC: Annual issues), table 7.

1992-2001: Ibid., Railroad Safety Statistics Annual Report 2001 (Washington, DC: July 2003), tables 1-1 and 8-13, available at Internet site http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety.

2002: Ibid., Preliminary data available at Internet site http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/Prelim/2002/r01.htm as of Dec. 3, 2003.

Transit:

1990-2000: U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration, Safety Management Information Statistics (Washington, DC: Annual issues).

Water:

Vessel- and nonvessel-related:

1970-91: U.S. Department of Transportation, U.S. Coast Guard, Office of Investigations and Analysis, Compliance Analysis Division, (G-MOA-2), personal communication, Apr. 13, 1999.

1992-2002: Ibid., Data Administration Division (G-MRI-1), personal communications, Dec. 12, 2001 and May 28, 2003.

Recreational boating:

1960-2001: Ibid., Office of Boating Safety, Boating Statistics (Washington, DC: Annual issues), also available at Internet site http://www.uscgboating.org as of July 25, 2003.

2002: Ibid., Boating Statistics 2002 - Executive Summary, available at Internet site http://www.uscgboating.org as of Dec. 10, 2003.

Hazardous liquid and gas pipeline:

1970-2002: U.S. Department of Transportation, Research and Special Programs Administration, Office of Pipeline Safety, personal communication and Internet site http://ops.dot.gov as of June 3, 2003.