Federal, state and local transportation agencies, law enforcement, the legislature, consulting firms, safety advocates and the public use crash data to quantify emerging traffic safety issues and problems, determine priorities, support decision-making, and target resources where they will be most effective. In most states, the primary source of crash data is a report completed by police officers. Oregon is different in that it relies heavily on citizens to report crash data via the Oregon Traffic Accident and Insurance (OTAI) paper-based report. Citizens are required to submit the OTAI report to the Driver and Motor Vehicle Services (DMV) within 72 hours after the accident occurs. The main objective of this project was to define the main features, functions, capabilities and system architectures that may be incorporated into an online citizen crash reporting system to complement (and eventually replace) the paper-based OTAI report. The implementation of an online citizen crash reporting system could translate into a number of potential benefits to DMV and the Crash Analysis and Reporting (CAR) Unit. These benefits may include the collection of more accurate, timely, uniform and complete traffic accident data. It is expected that the preliminary design work performed as part of this project will aid the DMV and the CAR Unit in the future development and implementation of an online citizen crash reporting system. (Author/publisher)
Abstract