Characteristics of Emerging Road and Trail Users and Their Safety

State Narrative Crash Data

As noted above, at least three States-Oregon, Rhode Island, and North Carolina-computerize some or all of the narrative descriptions contained on their crash reports, and are able to conduct key word searches of these data. Theoretically, at least, this should make it possible to identify crashes involving any road user group desired, regardless of whether they are coded elsewhere on the form. In practice, narrative searches always underestimate the occurrence of a particular crash type, because (1) officers do not always report the information, (2) if they do report the information, they may use words, or spellings of words, that do not coincide with any of the key search terms chosen, and/or (3) there may be omissions or other errors in entering the narrative data into the computerized database. For example, an officer may fail to notice that a child struck by a car was riding a scooter at the time, or may refer to the scooter in his report as a "push bike" or "skooter."

In North Carolina, narrative searches have been used to study a wide array of topics that otherwise could not have been studied from the computerized crash data alone. Examples include post-crash fires, deer crashes, cellular phone use and crashes, driver distractions, billboards, hydroplaning in wet weather crashes, and road debris as a causative factor in crashes. To explore the potential usefulness of narrative searches for identifying crashes involving emerging road and trail users, we used the following search words to identify crashes potentially involving inline skates, roller blades, or skateboards: inline, skate, roller, blade. This list generated 43 narratives for crashes occurring between January and some time in August 2002. However, upon reading the printed narratives, many of these were found to be false hits: for example, reference to a roller tape used in taking measurements, an asphalt roller used in road repair, or a snow plow blade. Eight narratives were true "hits." Examples of these appear below:

"Vehicle 1 made a right turn onto Hillburn Street from Chapel Road. Pedestrian child was rollerblading across Hillburn Street. Driver 1 stated that child skated from his blind spot directly in front of vehicle. Driver 1 stated he did not see the child until the collision."

"After interviewing witnesses and subjects involved it was determined that ped was roller blading in roadway and attempted to cross roadway making contact with the vehicle 2 on the front left quarter panel and then rolling up onto the windshield and was thrown off the front into the roadway."

"Driver Vehicle 1 stated he had just about passed the child on a skateboard when the child moved back into the street and hit [his truck]."

"Driver of Vehicle 1 stated she was going straight ahead and the child was riding a skateboard and came out of side street and struck her vehicle. Pedestrian's mother stated that her son told her he couldn't stop in time and struck vehicle 1 in the side."

While these are only a few example cases, they illustrate how narrative searches can be used to identify crashes of interest that otherwise might go undetected on the computerized crash database.

In addition to underestimating the occurrence of a particular type crash, data resulting from computerized narrative searches will suffer from the same limitations as the computerized report data, namely, a restriction to crashes involving motor vehicles and occurring on public roadways. This data source is again likely to be most useful when used as a basis for a case series study to provide guidance to a larger data collection and analysis activity.