Deadly problem remains for lack of openness
| • | PDF: State OIP opinion on release of accident data |
| • | State's traffic crash records questioned |
By Rob Perez and Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writers
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If University of Hawai'i professor Karl Kim, a nationally known researcher on traffic safety, had access to the state's massive database on crashes, he believes he and his colleagues could add a greater understanding to why hundreds of pedestrians are injured and usually 20 or more are killed on local roadways each year.
That, in turn, could help the state solve what has been a perplexing and deadly problem, especially for older residents.
But Kim and his people don't have access to the database.
After tapping the information for years to do numerous studies, some that helped lawmakers pass safety legislation, the UH researchers were denied access in the late 1990s when the state Department of Transportation, keepers of the information, raised concerns about whether confidential personal information would be compromised.
Kim, however, said personal information largely was removed before UH got the data, and the school only used what it received to do research reports.
Another concern that the department has raised in blocking or severely restricting access to the crash data involves liability. The state basically doesn't want accident data to be used against it in lawsuits. So the DOT has not made the data readily available to researchers, safety advocates and others outside the DOT.
Not even the state Department of Health, a sister agency that uses data of all types to help prevent injuries, has full access.
The accessibility dilemma underscores what some experts say is an unusual problem: Some of the very people who could help solve a daunting community problem are not given all the tools to do so.
What makes the dilemma especially puzzling: Another state agency already has determined the crash data should be available to the public, once confidential personal information is removed.
And while the state's crash database has problems pegged to an unreliable records system, according to a team of experts who evaluated the system last October for the federal government, that information still is considered the best, most complete source for doing accident-related safety studies in Hawai'i.
If Kim had the data, he said, he and his colleagues could:
"This information would be invaluable to efforts related to enforcement, engineering and education (solutions)," said Kim, editor of a national journal on accident analysis and prevention.
Without access to the data, however, the UH researchers have had to piece together information, going so far as visiting auto-repair shops to ask them what trends they detected in certain kinds of collisions.
OTHER SOURCES
The state Health Department has done some piecing together of its own. When it published a report on pedestrian injuries and fatalities nearly two years ago, none of the data used to create the study came from the DOT.
Instead, the Health Department's latest "Pedestrian Injury Factsheet" released in August 2005 was compiled from death certificates, hospital and emergency department records, the federal government and newspaper clippings. The one agency that could have provided all the information needed to put together the study was the DOT, but until recently the agency did not share enough information to do a complete report.
"We were able to get it in bits and pieces," said Dan Galanis, an epidemiologist with the DOH Injury Prevention and Control Program. "It's what they did for us at the time and it helped, but it wasn't what we preferred."
In the past two years, the DOT has provided the Health Department with more information, but the DOH still does not get full access to the accident database. For now, Galanis said the DOH is satisfied with what it receives.
The DOT's accident database is based on records of all major accidents reported by the police departments in each county. The Advertiser has asked for the data in electronic form and received a March 2005 ruling from the state Office of Information Practices that said the DOT is obligated to produce the accident data.
But the OIP has been told by the DOT that the department lacks the computer software to edit out personal information about those involved in accidents. The Advertiser would have to pay the $20,000 for the software that would allow the DOT to produce the data, minus personal information, the OIP said.
Brant Houston, executive director of Missouri-based Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc., said he doesn't believe DOT's claim that it does not have the ability to segregate the data.
"That's one of the oldest bureaucratic tricks to keep you from getting a look at the bigger picture," Houston said. "If they're keeping software that does not allow easy redaction, then they should get new software."
DOT CAN DO EDITING
When it has to, the DOT is able to produce reports that contain an edited version of its traffic accident database.
Galanis of the Health Department said the DOT is mandated by statute to work with health officials to study the state's graduated driver licensing law and recently provided Galanis with detailed information of traffic crashes that go back 10 years.
The data do not include the personal information or crash locations, but they do include details such as the age and gender of the people involved in crashes, as well as "attributing factors," such as whether someone was speeding or had darted out into the roadway.
To produce the report, Alvin Takeshita of DOT's traffic safety branch said department staff "manually extracted" the information for the DOH.
"DOH needed only limited number of fields of the 67 total fields of each accident," Takeshita said. "We felt that under the circumstance it was necessary to use our labor resources for that request."
As for why transportation officials don't share information fully with the Health Department, Takeshita said the DOH does not need all of the data, including the accident location information, and the Health Department has acknowledged that the data aren't required.
Takeshita added that the DOT does not provide electronic forms of accident data to other state, county or federal agencies.
Reach Rob Perez at rperez@honoluluadvertiser.com and Curtis Lum at culum@honoluluadvertiser.com.
