A Guide to Reporting Highway Statistics

The Guide to Reporting Highway Statistics describes polices and procedure for assembling statistical information from State agencies. The FHWA collects and publishes motor vehicle registration and licensed driver information obtained from the States and the District of Columbia. This information is collected from State departments of transportation pursuant to 23 CFR 420.105 and is published in Highway Statistics. The information is used in preparing legislatively required reports to Congress, in evaluating highway safety programs, and, in general, as an aid to highway planning, programming, budgeting, forecasting, and fiscal management. In recent years, FHWA has implemented several re-assessment efforts to assure that Highway Statistics data remains up-to-date and relevant for current purposes. On January 6, 2006, the FHWA published a notice in the Federal Register at 71 FR 969 to solicit public comments on the quality, timeliness, comprehensiveness, and other characteristics of the driver license data. Based on the public comments received, the FHWA has determined to make a change to the data definition of teen-age driver to reflect more accurately the actual number of teens driving, and to update the software used to collect the motor vehicle registration and licensed driver information from the States. In addition, FHWA has determined that the data collected on page four of the FHWA Form 562 – data concerning the number of Commercial Driver’s Licenses disqualified - is no longer necessary. FHWA collected this data for the Bureau of Motor Carrier Safety, but now that organization collects this data in their business procedures. Hence, it is redundant for FHWA to also collect the data. Data Quality Under the mandates of E-Government initiatives, the FHWA is developing enhanced software to receive and process motor vehicle registration and licensed driver data more efficiently. The questions asked will remain the same, but the software used to collect the information will ease data submittal and will result in more accurate reporting. This enhanced software, once developed, will enable State data providers to take advantage of more advanced submittal and editing features that can significantly reduce reporting time and errors. With respect to enhanced software, FHWA is in the process of making software improvements to the features in the following form templates: • FHWA Form 561 – State Motor Vehicle Registrations, Registration Fees and Miscellaneous Receipts; • FHWA Form 562 – State Driver Licenses and Fees; • FHWA Form 566 – State Motor Vehicle Registration and Other Receipts; • FHWA Form 571 – Receipts from State Taxation of Motor Vehicles Operated for Hire and Other Motor Carriers. The FHWA anticipates that the enhanced software containing these revised form templates will be released and distributed to the States mid-2007, allowing sufficient time for the FHWA to train States in preparation for the 2008 release of Highway Statistics – 2007. The FHWA notes that any revisions to the software will result in template and format changes only, and with the exception of the elimination of page four of the FHWA Form 562, will not change the type or quantity of data collected. Revision of the forms will involve some additional paperwork burden on the data providers in transition to the new forms and learning how the new forms function, but will also reduce the paperwork burden over time as the automated forms will take less time to complete.

The latest form for A Guide to Reporting Highway Statistics expires 2022-09-30 and can be found here.