Motor vehicle fatalities and injuries off public highways: Highlights of the NiTS system

In 2009 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released the Not-in-Traffic Surveillance (NiTS) system. The NiTS system is a virtual data collection system designed to provide counts and details regarding fatalities and injuries that occur in nontraffic crashes and in noncrash incidents. The NiTS system was developed as a virtual system comprised of three databases. The nontraffic crash component was based predominantly upon police reports received by NHTSA during 2007 through its existing crash data collection infrastructure. The noncrash fatality component was based upon special mortality data files obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Vital Statistics System for 2003 and 2004. The noncrash injury component was based upon emergency department records contained in the Consumer Product Safety Commission's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System from 2003 through 2006. The NiTS system provides an annual estimate of more than 1,700 fatalities and over 840,000 injuries that occur in nontraffic situations. Major findings include information about the frequency of the injury scenarios, the age of the victims, and the location of the incident. The most common fatality scenario was a single-vehicle crash on a private road, in a driveway, in a parking lot or not on any road with 496 deaths. The most common injury scenario was a body part caught in a closing vehicle door with an estimated 148,000 injuries per year. The NiTS system has provided NHTSA with its most comprehensive assessment to date of injuries involving motor vehicles that occur off public highways.