Governor’s Highway Safety Program

Data Documentation Project

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Compiled January 10, 2019

Crash Records from NC Division of Motor Vehicles

Overview: General description of data source

A motor vehicle crash involves a motor vehicle in transport resulting in an un-stabilized situation,

which includes at least one harmful event. An un-stabilized situation is a set of events not under

human control, which originates when control is lost and terminates when control is regained or

when all persons and property are at rest. The terms collision, accident, and crash are

synonymous when describing a motor vehicle crash.

North Carolina crash records must meet at least one of the following criteria:

 The crash resulted in a fatality, or

 The crash resulted in a non-fatal personal injury, or

 The crash resulted in total property damage amounting to $1,000.00 or more, or

 The crash resulted in property damage of any amount to a vehicle seized, or

Are the data available to outside parties for analytical purposes?

Yes

Process to obtain the data for research

There are three ways to obtain crash data for research:

1. Submit a request for data to the Traffic Records Section at the Department of Transportation

Division of Motor Vehicles using form DMV APP-ONLINE-DATA Request for Access to

Multiple Records Containing Personal Information. The form should be submitted to:

North Carolina Department of Transportation

Division of Motor Vehicles Traffic Records Section

3105 Mail Service Center

Governor’s Highway Safety Program

Data Documentation Project

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Compiled January 10, 2019

3. Contact the HSRC for assistance obtaining data.

Website

https://www.ncdot.gov/dmv/records/

Contact(s)

Eric Bellamy

FARS/Operations/Support/Data Control

Manager

NC Department of Transportation

919-861-3476

Brian Murphy, PE

Safety Planning Engineer

Traffic Safety Unit

North Carolina Department of

Transportation

Governor’s Highway Safety Program

Data Documentation Project

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Compiled January 10, 2019

Who enters the original data (Highway patrol officers, Healthcare providers, etc.)?

NC highway patrol officers within 24 hours of event; approximately 75% submit PDF forms, 25%

submit paper forms that are then data-entered by state office staff.

Injury classification: Injury classification method (ICD-10-CM, etc.)

KABCO:

 K Killed: Deaths, which occur within 12 months after the crash.

 A injury type (disabling): Injury obviously serious enough to prevent the person injured

from performing his normal activities for at least one day beyond the day of the collision.

 B injury type (evident): Obvious injury, other than killed or disabling, which is evident at

the scene. Class B injury would not necessarily prevent the person from carrying on his

Governor’s Highway Safety Program

Data Documentation Project

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Compiled January 10, 2019

that the investigating officer make a written report of the crash within 24 hours. The law

enforcement agency must submit the report to the Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) within 10

days after receiving it. If the officer writing the report is a member of the State Highway Patrol, the

officer must forward the report to the Division of Motor Vehicle (DMV).

Years available: Description of timespan for which data are available

January 1, 1990 to the present, with 1-2 month delay for current records

Data History: Key changes in the data that would affect research use

KABCO definitions revised in 2012

Is a data dictionary available?

Yes

Governor’s Highway Safety Program

Data Documentation Project

Page 5 of 5

Compiled January 10, 2019

Two documents were made available to create the data documentation: an Excel file which

documented the DMV crash database and a PDF called the 2015 DMV 349 Data Dictionary.

There were no exact fields in common between the two documents and they appeared to serve

different purposes, the former as a comprehensive database documentation and the latter as a

guide for researchers. We created two field dictionaries based on the two documents and

included our attempt to cross match the data elements. Researchers requesting data elements

should not rely on the cross match, but should work with the data owners to ensure the data

requested is correct.

Additional fields available in source documentation

 Table description (Excel file)

Quality and Performance Measures

Known data quality issues

 Injury classification (KABCO) not always an accurate measure of level of injury