This paper presents and briefly examines a sample of issues or questions frequently raised in safety litigation that have important implications for improvements to existing data and information bases. Because much litigation seeks to determine the factors involved - and the contribution of each - in causing an accident, as well as the factors which could have averted an accident, it must rely on technically and scientifically sound data and other information which is applicable and properly interpreted and applied. But the state of such data and information is not such that it always can fully satisfy this quest. The author contrasts the accuracy and comprehensiveness of data provided by such databanks as the Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS) and the National Accident Sampling System (NASS) with that from less authoritative sources. Examples chosen to illustrate some key problems include: 1) exposure indices; 2) data and information base limitations; 3) "surrogacy issues"; and 4) "consensual standards". They were all identified because of their frequency of appearance in litigation. They are also linked by a central theme: the need to improve the applicability and utility of data and other information to the real world, so that safety benefits can be realized more rapidly and economically.
Abstract