National Highway Traffic Safety Administration October 16, 2024 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice requests information from interested parties to assist the agency in researching property damage only (PDO) crash data collection practices across the United States. State statutes dictate that law enforcement should complete a crash report for PDO crashes meeting a set of criteria including when damage is above a certain dollar threshold that varies by State. When a crash is below the reportable threshold, States may allow civilians to complete a crash report designed specifically for them. In some cases, jurisdictions within States have stopped collecting PDO crashes in an effort to save officer time and/or money. Other jurisdictions have stopped sending sworn officers to respond to PDO crashes. However, the impacts of these changes on crash data collection are not well documented or understood. NHTSA is seeking to identify States and jurisdictions that have modified their PDO crash reporting threshold or are using citizen or non-sworn officers to report PDO crashes, and to determine the impacts of these practices on crash data analyses and agencies' budgets and time. NHTSA seeks comments from all interested parties, including State crash data owners, highway safety offices, law enforcement, and other stakeholders to help inform NHTSA's research into State PDO crash data collection practices.