[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 200 (Wednesday, October 20, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 58141-58145]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-22824]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

[Docket No. DOT-NHTSA-2021-0039]


Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the 
Office of Management and Budget for Review and Approval; State Data 
Transfer for Vehicle Crash Information

AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 
Department of Transportation (DOT).

ACTION: Notice and request for approval of an extension of a currently 
approved information collection.

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SUMMARY: In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), 
this notice announces that the Information Collection Request (ICR) 
summarized below will be submitted to

[[Page 58142]]

the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval. The 
ICR describes the nature of the information collection and its expected 
burden. The State Data Transfer (SDT) program is a voluntary collection 
of motor vehicle crash data that State agencies collect for their own 
needs. NHTSA received emergency clearance to conduct the information 
collection until December 31, 2021. A Federal Register Notice with a 
60-day comment period soliciting comments on the following information 
collection was published on June 1, 2021. One comment from the 
Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) was received supporting 
NHTSA's SDT data collection and the request for emergency clearance to 
expedite this effort.

DATES: Comments must be submitted on or before November 19, 2021.

ADDRESSES: Written comments and recommendations for the proposed 
information collection, including suggestions for reducing burden, 
should be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget at 
www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain. To find this particular information 
collection, select ``Currently under Review--Open for Public Comment'' 
or use the search function.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For additional information or access 
to background documents, contact Michael Frenchik, Office of Data 
Acquisitions (NSA-0100), (202) 366-0641, National Highway Traffic 
Safety Administration, Room W53-303, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, 
Washington, DC 20590.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Under the PRA (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), a 
Federal agency must receive approval from the Office of Management and 
Budget (OMB) before it collects certain information from the public and 
a person is not required to respond to a collection of information by a 
Federal agency unless the collection displays a valid OMB control 
number. In compliance with these requirements, this notice announces 
that the following information collection request will be submitted to 
OMB.
    Title: State Data Transfer (SDT) for Vehicle Crash Information.
    OMB Control Number: 2127-0753.
    Form Numbers: None.
    Type of Request: Approval of an extension without modification of a 
currently approved information collection.
    Type of Review Requested: Regular.
    Length of Approval Requested: Three years.
    Summary of the Collection of Information: The State Data Transfer 
(SDT) program is a voluntary collection of motor vehicle crash data. 
State agencies collect this information about motor vehicle crashes on 
Police Accident Reports (PARs) \1\ for their own needs. In general, a 
PAR includes information about the vehicles and individuals involved in 
a crash, injuries or fatalities resulting from a crash, roadway 
information, environmental information, information to reconstruct the 
crash scenes, etc. The SDT is a process through which participating 
States transfer their PAR data to NHTSA. SDT has two components that 
NHTSA's National Center for Statistics and Analysis (NCSA) calls 
protocols:
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    \1\ Police Accident Reports are also known as Police Crash 
Reports (PCRs) in some jurisdictions.
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    1. The State Data System (SDS) protocol obtains PAR crash data from 
States that submit data on an annual basis to NCSA. The data is 
submitted via electronic media, such as encrypted CD-ROM/DVD, or 
through secured mail or a secure file transfer protocol (SFTP). Files 
submitted through the SDS protocol are referred to as ``annual crash 
files.''
    2. The Electronic Data Transfer (EDT) protocol obtains PAR crash 
data, crash reports or crash images from participating State crash 
systems through an electronic data transfer. Generally, this transfer 
occurs on a nightly basis following State data quality control checks 
and acceptance from each State's centralized database. The information 
is transmitted using Extensible Markup Language (XML) or JavaScript 
Object Notation (JSON) files through a web service using Hypertext 
Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) protocol between a State's crash data 
system and NHTSA.
    The SDT process allows States to submit all of their PAR data to 
NHTSA. NCSA will then use this data to develop a census of the 
participating State's crashes. The dataset will help NCSA identify 
existing and emerging highway safety trends and assess the 
effectiveness of motor vehicle safety standards and new and emerging 
technologies on vehicle and highway safety programs. NHTSA will also 
use the dataset to support NHTSA's Corporate Average Fuel Economy 
(CAFE) program. Specifically, NHTSA will use the data to analyze the 
effects vehicle mass has on fatalities in cost benefit analyses for 
CAFE rulemakings.
    Description of the Need for the Information and Proposed Use of the 
Information: NHTSA plans to utilize the SDT data to identify existing 
and emerging highway safety trends, assess the effectiveness of motor 
vehicle safety standards, and study the impact of new and emerging 
technologies on vehicles and highway safety programs. For example, 
NHTSA plans to combine data from the SDT with information about the 
type of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) on crash-involved 
vehicles to estimate the effectiveness of vehicles equipped with ADAS 
technologies such as lane keeping support, automatic emergency braking, 
blind spot detection, etc.
    NHTSA also plans to use the SDT data to automatically pre-populate 
the motor vehicle crash data it collects for several other NHTSA data 
collection programs. The following are brief descriptions of these data 
collection programs:
     FARS (OMB Control No. 2127-0006) is a nationwide census of 
fatalities caused by motor vehicle traffic crashes. In addition to PAR 
data, FARS includes detailed information regarding the location of the 
crash, the vehicles, and the people involved. FARS cases can also 
include toxicology report data, medical records, medical examiner 
reports, etc.\2\
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    \2\ Additional details about FARS and how the agency collects 
this information are available in the supporting statements for the 
ICR with OMB Control No. 2127-0006.
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     CRSS (OMB Control No. 2127-0714) is a nationally 
representative sample of police-reported crashes involving all types of 
motor vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists, ranging from property-
damage-only crashes to those that result in fatalities. CRSS data 
elements are a subset of the data elements on each State's PAR.\3\
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    \3\ Additional details about CRSS and how the agency collects 
this information are available in the supporting statements for the 
ICR with OMB Control No. 2127-0714.
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     CISS (OMB Control Number 2127-0706) is a nationally 
representative sample of minor, serious, and fatal crashes involving at 
least one passenger vehicle--cars, light trucks, sport utility 
vehicles, and vans--towed from the scene. CISS collects data at both 
the crash level through scene analysis and the vehicle level through 
vehicle damage assessment together with injury coding. Data collected 
through CISS expands upon the information that is collected in a 
PAR.\4\
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    \4\ Additional details about CISS and how the agency collects 
this information are available in the supporting statements for the 
ICR with OMB Control No. 2127-0706.
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     The SCI Program provides NHTSA with the most in-depth 
crash data collected by the agency. The data collected ranges from 
basic information contained in routine police and insurance crash 
reports, to comprehensive data from special reports

[[Page 58143]]

produced by professional crash investigation teams. Hundreds of data 
elements relevant to the vehicle, occupants, injury mechanisms, 
roadway, and safety systems are collected for each of the over 100 
crashes designated for study annually.
     NTS is a virtual data collection system designed to 
provide counts and details regarding fatalities and injuries that occur 
in non-traffic crashes and in non-crash incidents. NTS non-traffic 
crash data is obtained through NHTSA's information collections for CRSS 
and FARS. NTS non-crash injury data is based upon emergency department 
records from a special study conducted by the Consumer Product Safety 
Commission's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) All 
Injury Program. NTS non-crash fatality data is derived from death 
certificate information from the Centers for Disease Control's National 
Vital Statistics System.
     CIREN combines crash data collection with professional 
multidisciplinary analysis of medical and engineering evidence to 
determine injury causation in every crash investigation conducted. The 
mission of the CIREN is to improve the prevention, treatment, and 
rehabilitation of motor vehicle crash injuries to reduce deaths, 
disabilities, and human and economic costs.
    Until recently, the transfer of vehicle crash data from a State's 
crash data system to NHTSA's FARS, CRSS and CISS required individuals 
to manually enter State vehicle crash data into each of the crash data 
systems operated by NHTSA. The SDT program will allow NHTSA to automate 
the transfer of State motor vehicle crash data into NHTSA's other data 
collection efforts that use this information. NHTSA's SDT program will 
reduce the burden for manual data entry and result in more accurate, 
high quality and timely data to help save lives, prevent injuries, and 
reduce economic costs due to motor vehicle crashes.
    In addition, the SDT data will be made available to other DOT 
agencies, such as the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal 
Motor Carrier Safety Administration, to support their mission to save 
lives on our national roadways.
    Request for Emergency Clearance: NHTSA requested emergency 
clearance from OMB for the SDT information collection. NHTSA requested 
emergency clearance for the maximum permissible period under 5 CFR 
1320.13 (f) to allow NHTSA to collect the information while it 
completes the normal clearance procedures. NHTSA sought emergency 
clearance because the data collected through the SDT program are 
critical to several high priority projects for this administration. The 
SDT data will be used to analyze the effects vehicle mass has on 
fatalities in cost benefit analyses for CAFE rulemakings. Executive 
Order 13990 requires NHTSA to ``as appropriate and consistent with 
applicable law, [. . .] consider publishing for notice and comment a 
proposed rule suspending, revising, or rescinding'' the SAFE II Rule 
``by July 2021.'' Following the normal clearance procedures will not 
allow NHTSA to receive approval to collect and use this data before the 
deadline.
    The Partnership for Analytics Research in Traffic Safety (PARTS) 
also needs this data to help determine the effectiveness of automated 
driver assistance systems (ADAS) with Departmental leadership expecting 
initial analyses later this year.
    Given the priorities identified above, this information is needed 
before NHTSA can complete the normal clearance procedures under 5 CFR 
part 1320. OMB approved the emergency clearance through December 31, 
2021.
    60-Day Notice: On June 1, 2021, NHTSA published a notice in the 
Federal Register with a 60-day comment period soliciting comments on 
this ICR.\5\ NHTSA received one comment from the Governors Highway 
Safety Association (GHSA). In their comment, GHSA expressed support for 
NHTSA's SDT data collection and the request for emergency clearance to 
expedite this effort. GHSA stated that it appreciates that the data 
collection is voluntary and agrees with NHTSA ``that several States 
will likely continue to face participation barriers.'' GHSA further 
noted that it understands that the electronic transfer of Stata crash 
data reduces time and cost to States that participate and will continue 
to partner with NHTSA to promote SDT.
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    \5\ 86 FR 29354.
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    Affected Public: State Governments.
    This voluntary information collection involves State governments, 
and specifically the State agencies that collect crash data.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: 38.
    Currently, 31 States are voluntarily submitting their annual crash 
database to NHTSA using the SDS protocol once the Annual file is 
complete and 19 States are voluntarily submitting their State's data 
using the EDT protocol where the transfer occurs on a nightly basis. 
NHTSA estimates that, on average, in each of the next three years, 
there will be 31 States submitting data using the SDS protocol and 23 
States submitting data using the EDT protocol. NHTSA estimates that 
there will be 15 States submitting data through both EDT and SDS. 
Therefore, NHTSA estimates the total number of respondents to be 38.
    Frequency: The frequency of this information collection varies 
State-by-State, potentially from daily to annually, as agreed upon by 
NHTSA and the individual States. States participating in the SDS 
protocol typically send a file to NHTSA once a year with all the 
crashes occurring during a calendar year. A State will send these files 
when it has completed its quality control process. For the EDT States, 
the data is usually transferred every night with the crash cases that 
have completed the quality control process since the last nightly 
transfer.
    Number of Reponses: NHTSA estimates total annual responses based on 
NHTSA's estimate that SDS protocol States will submit files once a year 
and EDT protocol States will send data to NHTSA automatically on a 
nightly basis. Therefore, NHTSA estimates that it will receive 31 SDS 
responses a year (31 SDS States x 1 annual response) and 8,395 EDT 
responses a year (23 EDT States x 365 nightly responses).
    Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 683 hours.
    SDT receives the crash data from States in two different ways. SDS 
information is obtained annually from States submitted in a more 
traditional method via electronic media through secured mail or a 
Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). NHTSA assumes a participating 
State already has a centralized electronic crash database. Currently, 
31 States are voluntarily submitting their annual crash database to 
NHTSA, with five States sending electronic media and 26 states 
uploading the database to an SFTP site. Since NHTSA accepts the States' 
centralized electronic crash database without changes, NHTSA estimates 
that it will require eight hours for a State Database Administrator to 
save a copy of the State's annual crash database onto a SFTP site or 
electronic media. We estimate an additional four hours will be required 
for an administrative assistant to package and send the electronic 
media to NHTSA.
    To estimate the labor cost associated with submitting the SDS 
information, NHTSA looked at wage estimates for the type of personnel 
involved with copying, packaging and sending the database. NHTSA 
estimates the total labor costs associated with copying the database by 
looking at the average wage for Database and Network Administrator

[[Page 58144]]

and Architects. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that the 
average hourly wage for Database and Network Administrator and 
Architects (Standard Occupational Classification #15-1240, May 2020) is 
$47.80.\6\ The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that State and 
local government workers' wages represent 61.9% of total labor 
compensation costs.\7\ Therefore, NHTSA estimates the hourly labor 
costs for copying the database to be $77.22 ($47.80 / 61.9%) for 
Database and Network Administrator and Architects. The cost associated 
with the eight hours of Database and Network Administrator labor is 
estimated to be $617.76 per respondent.
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    \6\ See May 2020 National Occupational Employment and Wage 
Estimates United States, available at https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm (accessed April 16, 2021).
    \7\ See Table 1. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation by 
ownership (Dec. 2020), available at https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.t01.htm (accessed April 16, 2021).
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    For the 5 States sending electronic media, NHTSA estimates the 
total labor costs for packing and sending the database by looking at 
the average wage for Secretaries and Administrative Assistants. The BLS 
estimates that the average hourly wage for Secretaries and 
Administrator Assistants (Standard Occupational Classification #43-
6014, May 2020) is $19.43.\8\ By using the same estimate that wages 
represent 61.9% of the total compensation cost of labor, NHTSA 
estimates the total labor hour for packing and sending the database on 
electronic media to be $31.39. Therefore, the cost associated with the 
four hours to send the electronic media is estimated to be $125.56 per 
respondent.
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    \8\ See May 2020 National Occupational Employment and Wage 
Estimates United States, available at https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm (accessed April 16, 2021).
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    Combining these copying and packing and sending burden estimates 
for SDS, NHTSA estimates that the total burden hours associated with 
this collection will be 268 (248 + 20 hours) hours and total labor cost 
associated with the collection will be $19,151 ($617.76 x 31 States) 
for copying and $628 ($125.56 x 5 States) for packing and sending, for 
a total of $19,779 ($19,151 + $628) for the SDS protocol.

                                                               SDS Burden Estimate Summary
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                                                                           Burden hours    Total burden   Labor cost per  Labor cost per    Total labor
                       Burden type                          Respondents   per respondent       hours        burden hour     respondent         cost
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SDS Copying.............................................              31               8             248          $77.22         $617.76      $19,150,56
                                                                                                                                                  19,151
SDS Packing and sending.................................               5               4              20           31.39          125.56          627.80
                                                                                                                                                     628
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    Total...............................................  ..............  ..............             268  ..............  ..............          19,779
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    The EDT protocol burden hour estimate is based on the level of 
effort reported by the States that have fully implemented SDT. NHTSA 
estimates that in each of the next three years, there will be two new 
States joining the 19 States already participating in SDT program using 
the EDT protocol. Therefore, NHTSA estimates that there will be, on 
average, 23 EDT protocol States in each of the next three years. Cost 
and burden estimates for the EDT protocol are divided in two: a one-
time implementation effort, and an annual maintenance effort. Both 
estimates assume a participating State already has a centralized 
electronic crash database. The burden for the one-time implementation 
of the SDT program is estimated at 200 hours. NHTSA estimates that 
these hours will account for work done by State IT (150 hrs.) and FARS 
program personnel (50 hrs.).
    Once implemented, the hourly burden on States associated with SDT 
maintenance is estimated at five hours per year, based upon currently 
participating States' experiences. This time is generally used to 
troubleshoot any connection issues or refine mapping protocols for any 
data elements that have changed.
    NHTSA estimates the cost for IT personnel burden hours using the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics' mean wage estimate for Software developers 
and Programmers (Standard Occupational Classification # 15-1250) of 
$52.86.\9\ The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that for State and 
local government workers, wages represent 61.9% of total 
compensation.\10\ Therefore, the total hourly cost associated with the 
IT burden hours is estimated to be $85.40 per hour. The cost associated 
with the 150 hours of IT personnel labor is estimated to be $12,810.00 
per respondent. Initial SDT implementation is also expected to involve 
50 hours of FARS program personnel time. There is no additional cost to 
the States associated with these hours because these costs may be 
charged to the Federal Government through the FARS cooperative 
agreements. Thus, total labor cost for EDT implication costs per State 
are estimated to be $12,810.00. The total annual implementation burden 
cost per year is estimated to be $25,620 ($12,810.00 x 2 new State 
respondents).
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    \9\ See May 2020 National Occupational Employment and Wage 
Estimates United States, available at https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm (accessed April 16, 2021).
    \10\ Employer Costs for Employee Compensation by ownership (Dec. 
2020), available at https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.t01.htm 
(accessed April 16, 2021).
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    After initial implementation of a SDT interface, the ongoing cost 
burden to participating States is estimated at 5 hours per State 
annually, based on a survey of currently participating States. Per the 
loaded labor rates for State IT staff outlined above, 5 hours of work 
translates to an estimated total annual maintenance burden of $427.00 
per State respondent maintaining participation in the SDT program. 
NHTSA estimates that there will be, on average, 23 States participating 
in EDT program in each of the next three years. Therefore, the annual 
maintenance cost for the States is a total of $9,821.00 ($427.00 x 23 
States) per year.
    Combining these implementation and maintenance burden estimates for 
the EDT protocol, NHTSA estimates that the total burden hours 
associated with this collection will be 415 hours and total labor cost 
associated with the collection will be $35,441.00.

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                                                               EDT Burden Estimate Summary
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                                                                           Burden hours    Total burden   Labor cost per  Labor cost per    Total labor
                       Burden type                          Respondents   per respondent       hours        burden hour     respondent         cost
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EDT IT Implementation...................................               2             150             300          $85.40      $12,810.00      $25,620.00
                                                                                                                                                  25,620
EDT Maintenance.........................................              23               5             115           85.40          427.00        9,821.00
                                                                                                                                                   9,821
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    Total...............................................  ..............  ..............             415  ..............  ..............          35,441
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    The total estimated burden for SDT is 683 (268 SDS + 415 EDT) and 
total estimated labor cost is $55,220 ($19,779 SDS + $35,441 EDT).
    A summary of the burden estimates is provided in the table below.

                                                               SDT Burden Estimate Summary
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                                                                                                          Average burden
                       Burden type                          Respondents    Total annual    Total burden      hours per      Total labor   Labor cost per
                                                                             responses         hours        respondent         cost         respondent
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SDS.....................................................              31              31             268               9         $19,779            $638
EDT.....................................................              23           8,395             415              18          35,441           1,541
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    Total...............................................  ..............  ..............             683  ..............          55,220  ..............
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    Estimated Total Annual Burden Cost: $0.
    NHTSA does not expect that participating states will incur any 
costs beyond the labor hour cost associated with the burden hours.
    Public Comments Invited: You are asked to comment on any aspects of 
this information collection, including (a) whether the proposed 
collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of 
the functions of the agency, including whether the information will 
have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of 
the burden of the proposed collection of information, including the 
validity of the methodology and assumptions used; (c) ways to enhance 
the quality, utility and clarity of the information to be collected; 
and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on 
respondents, including the use of appropriate automated, electronic, 
mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or other forms 
of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic submission of 
responses.
    Authority: The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995; 44 U.S.C. Chapter 
35, as amended; 49 CFR 1.49; and DOT Order 1351.29.

Chou-Lin Chen,
Associate Administrator, National Center for Statistics and Analysis.
[FR Doc. 2021-22824 Filed 10-19-21; 8:45 am]
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