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Dr. Ashish Sen, Director, Bureau of Transportation Statistics
National Safety Council
Chicago, IL
July 20, 2001

I am delighted to be here with so many people who dedicate their lives to making our society safer.

First, my compliments to Alan McMillan for his major contributions over many years to improving transportation safety. Also, Chuck Hurley, Vice President for Transportation Safety, Harold Thompson, manager of highway safety programs, and Meili Lin, director of research and statistics, deserve tremendous credit for their work to raise the level of safety.

I especially applaud your work over many years to increase awareness of the safety benefits of seatbelts and airbags. Your work as partners with the Department of Transportation has been a key factor in raising the level of seat belt usage, one of the most cost-effective safety measures available.

The leadership has changed at the Department of Transportation since work began in 1999 on the Safety Data Action Plan but safety remains important to the Department. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta has said, "Without a doubt, transportation safety is the Department's number one priority."

Secretary Mineta, as a congressman, was part of the conference that created the Bureau of Transportation Statistics in 1991. BTS is the agency that is charged with improving the quality of transportation data, both within DOT and throughout the entire transportation community.

BTS engages in a wide-range of transportation data activities. We collect information on airline operations and finances. We compile the monthly flight delay numbers which you see in your local newspaper.

We publish annual reports, such as the Transportation Statistics Annual Report, we operate the National Transportation Library, we collect information on motor carrier finances, we assist other agencies with databases and we provide mapping services. And we are working on many other activities, too.

In 10 years, BTS has accomplished a great deal. Even during my two years as director, we have moved forward on many initiatives.

One of our most exciting advances took place just a few weeks ago when we unveiled one-stop shopping for transportation data through the first version of the Intermodal Transportation Data Base. In the near future, we will have close to 150 data bases available for downloading--whether directly from the BTS site or through links to other sites.

Our goal is to make the data easy to get. If more people can analyze them, good things will happen.

The ITDB typifies BTS' role of cutting across modal distinctions to improve data quality and dissemination. And so does the Safety Data Initiative.

Few projects can compete in importance with the Safety Data Initiative. We are talking about new approaches to data that will result in the saving of lives on our roads, rails and waterways and in the skies. Nothing can be a higher priority than reducing the loss of life related to transportation.

With our Safety Data Initiative project, we will help decision-makers with the information they need. With better information, decision-makers will be able to focus their efforts on solutions that have the best chance of being successful.

Secretary Mineta has said the Department of Transportation will be "identifying the most effective means to provide the public with the greatest possible safety improvement for each dollar spent." Improving the quality and availability of safety data should be a significant part of that effort.

For too long, deaths and injuries have been a major cost in transportation. Transportation fatalities rank third as the cause of lost years of life in the U.S. behind heart disease and cancer. Alan has correctly pointed out the very high cost burden placed on businesses as well as individuals.

BTS is trying to improve transportation safety with a broad-based effort to upgrade existing data quality, fill gaps where necessary and develop methods to make better use of data. It is impossible to develop policies or any other initiatives for safety without good data.

To reach the next level of safety improvement, new tools are needed that focus on the causes and circumstances of transportation-related incidents. We can attain our goal but we will need analysis of high-quality data to identify patterns that can be addressed by new local legislation, technology, or other interventions.

Our goal is to provide a new level of data quality, sufficient to identify, quantify and minimize the risk factors in U.S. travel. This quality is essential to fact-based management of transportation safety programs.

There are, simply, too many people dying on our roads. In 1999, 219 people died in motor vehicle crashes in the City of Chicago, more than one-fourth of them pedestrians.

Chicago had a lower fatality rate per 100,000 population in 1999 than Philadelphia, Detroit and Cleveland but a higher rate than San Francisco, Indianapolis and Milwaukee. Why the difference? We don't know the answers today but it will be our mission in the coming years to dig deeper into the numbers and provide policy makers with more information.

We will be looking at broad national trends, too. During the past 25 years, the overall motor vehicle fatality rate per 100,000 population has dropped for every age group but one. During that same time period, the fatality rate for the 75 and above age group has increased almost as much as the fatality rate for the rest of the population has dropped.

We should find out as much as we can about the dangers on our roads that are unique to senior citizens. The growth that will take place in that age group in the coming years makes the need for better data even more urgent.

One part of the Safety Data Initiative, for example, will lead to improved traffic records and police reports. With better information, we hope to be able to identify leading safety indicators that can bring about action to prevent crashes.

We are also exploring new technologies for more timely and accurate data collection and recording. Automatic transfer of police reports to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data system would reduce the chance for human error that comes with paperwork--and get the data into the system faster.

We are extremely happy and honored to have the National Safety Council as our partner in this program. With apologies to Robert Maynard Hutchins--even if BTS could do it by ourselves, we should not. We need to do this together.

My goal is to turn the joint effort between BTS and the National Safety Council on the Safety Data Initiative into a continuing, long-term partnership on transportation safety issues.

For a start, you can join us to identify the existing data gaps. We are engaged in a major effort to identify data gaps. The long-term experience of the National Safety Council on seat-belts, for example, could help us identify what data is needed to raise the usage level.

By working together, we will produce higher quality safety data that can lead to a safer transportation system.

Data is the light in enlightened policy. As we fulfill this mission, we are affecting our transportation policies and making transportation better -- improving our lives and those of future generations.

This is an ambitious undertaking, but, as Daniel Burnham said, "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans: aim high in hope and work." We are aiming high. Let's see how far we can take this idea.