Crash Report Sampling System (CRSS) data come from a representative sample of police reported motor vehicle crashes of all types, but only basic information is recorded from the police crash reports and entered into the system. The system includes crashes involving at least one motor vehicle traveling on a traffic way, resulting in property damage, injury, or death. The crash reports are chosen from 60 areas in 31 states that are representative of the geography, roadway mileage, population, and traffic density of the United States. Data collectors make weekly visits to approximately 400 police jurisdictions in the 60 areas across the United States, where they randomly sample approximately 50,000 police crash reports each year. During coding, the data are checked electronically for validity and consistency. Further quality checks are performed on the data through computer processing and by the data coding supervisors.

The information provides a dataset to support regulatory and consumer information initiatives, as well as cost-benefit analyses of traffic safety initiatives. An annual publication, Traffic Safety Facts, is produced with CRSS non-fatal crash records combined with information on fatal crashes from the Fatal Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data files.

Data elements are categorized in datasets. The following is a list of datasets and a sample of the data elements included in each.

• Accident Data Set (e.g., crash type, crash severity, basic roadway features).
• Event Data Set (e.g., event sequence, vehicle number, area of damage).
• Vehicle/Driver Data Set (e.g., vehicle make, vehicle model, driver action).
• Distract Data Set (e.g., driver distracted by).
• Factor Data Set (e.g., vehicle contributing factors).
• Maneuver Data Set (e.g., driver maneuvered to avoid).
• Traffic Control Data Set (e.g., traffic control device for vehicle).
• Violation Data Set (e.g., violations charged).
• Vision Data Set (e.g., driver’s vision obscured by).
• Person Data Set (e.g., vehicle number, person number, person type, age, gender).
• Impair Data Set (e.g., person’s physical impairment).
• Non-Motorist Data Set (e.g., non-motorist action).
• Safety Data Set (e.g., non-motorist safety equipment use).
• Bike Data Set (e.g., traffic control device for cyclist).

Note that some element modification takes place every other year in order to meet the changing needs of the traffic safety community. Data cannot be matched to state roadway inventory databases because there is no information coded for the specific location of each crash. Roadway attributes are available in the CRSS database, but are based on police reported information rather than roadway inventory.

The CRSS replaces the National Automotive Sampling System General Estimates System (NASS GES), with the GES ending in 2015 and CRSS beginning with 2016 crash records. CRSS data should result in similar or smaller standard errors than GES data.