To provide an overall measure of highway safety, to help suggest solutions, and to help provide an objective basis to evaluate the effectiveness of motor vehicle safety standards and highway safety programs

The Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) contains data on a census of fatal traffic crashes within the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. To be included in FARS, a crash must involve a motor vehicle travelling on a trafficway customarily open to the public and result in the death of a person (occupant of a vehicle or a non-occupant) within 30 days of the crash. FARS has been operational since 1975 and has collected information on over 989,451 motor vehicle fatalities and collects information on over 100 different coded data elements that characterizes the crash, the vehicle, and the people involved.

It is the mission of NHTSA to reduce the number of motor vehicle crashes and deaths on our nation's highways, and subsequently, reduce the associated economic loss to society resulting from those motor vehicle crashes and fatalities. FARS data are critical to understanding the characteristics of the environment, trafficway, vehicles, and persons involved in the crash.

NHTSA has a cooperative agreement with an agency in each state government to provide information in a standard format on fatal crashes in the state. Data are collected, coded and submitted into a micro-computer data system and transmitted to Washington, D.C. Quarterly files are produced for analytical purposes to study trends and evaluate the effectiveness highway safety programs.

This national census of motor vehicle fatalities is not available from any other source. FARS is the agency's primary data base for highway safety analysis. It is also an essential data source to our customers such as: other federal agencies, universities, the motor vehicle industry, other interest groups, etc

The performance measures for NHTSA under the Government Performance and Results Act include the creation of the annual electronic data files for FARS by the annual target dates of July plus three additional quarterly files and a final file one year after the data collection year.

Motor Vehicle, fatal crashes, fatalities, restraint system, airbags, passenger cars, light trucks, large trucks, pedestrian, pedalcyclist, drivers, occupants.