House Report

ATTACHMENT 3: EXCERPT FROM HOUSE REPORT 111-564

National automotive sampling system.—The Committee notes

that NHTSA’s vehicle collision database has notably contracted

over time. The national automotive sampling system (NASS) was

established in 1979 to further NHTSA’s mission of reducing motor

vehicle crashes, injuries, and deaths on U.S. highways by collecting

motor vehicle crash and injury causation data. NASS consists of

the crashworthiness data system (CDS) and the general estimates

system (GES). When implemented, the CDS was designed to collect

detailed data on 15,000 to 20,000 collisions annually in the United

States.

The Committee is concerned that, at present, NASS/CDS collects

collision data for approximately 5,000 collisions annually and garners

a limited set of data from each crash. The Committee believes

that NASS/CDS is a fundamental underpinning of the agency’s activities

relative to the identification of emerging safety risks, the

setting of priorities for rulemaking, the evaluation of ways to improve

vehicle crashworthiness, and the assessment of the success

and potential benefit of advanced safety technologies. The Committee

supports the restoration and enhancement of NASS/CDS in

order to ensure that the agency has a robust database upon which

to base its efforts.

The Committee, therefore, recommends $14,406,000 for NASS/

CDS in fiscal year 2011, $1,500,000 above the request and

$1,876,000 above the fiscal year 2010 enacted level, to allow the

agency to investigate additional motor vehicle crashes and to expand

the scope of data collection so that additional crash causation

data elements can be captured.

In addition, the Committee directs NHTSA to submit a report to

the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations, by not later

than August 1, 2011, that evaluates the deficiencies of the NASS/

CDS data collection program based on current levels of case investigations

and analyzes the improvements in the program that could

be achieved through increased levels of case investigation and data

collection. The report should make recommendations regarding the

types of data collection that are needed to improve NHTSA’s ability

to develop safety countermeasures, the level of NASS/CDS case investigations

that are needed to obtain a sufficiently robust database

to identify emerging crash and occupant injury trends, as well

as the types of crashes that should be analyzed and methods that

can be used to enhance NASS/CDS data collection.

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