Center for Injury Research and Prevention, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 2716 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19146, USA.
University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, 418 Curie Blvd., Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Accid Anal Prev. 2020 May;139:105500. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2020.105500. Epub 2020 Mar 18.
Identifiable individual-level driver licensing and motor vehicle crash data are essential to advancing transportation safety research. However, epidemiologic studies using such data are rare, which may reflect their inaccessibility. We conducted a legal mapping study to evaluate US state laws regulating access to driver licensing and motor vehicle crash data for use in scientific research.
Legal statutes regulating the release of driver licensing and motor vehicle crash data for all 50 US states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) were retrieved. Legal text was evaluated to determine whether these jurisdictions authorize release of identifiable individual-level licensing and crash data for use in non-governmental research.
Thirty-six states and D.C. explicitly authorize release of identifiable individual-level licensing data to researchers. Only five states and D.C. authorize release of identifiable individual-level crash records. No states explicitly prohibit the release of individual-level data about licensing records and only three states prohibit release of individual-level crash record data, meaning that in many states it is ambiguous whether and when releasing such data to researchers is permitted.
It is important to understand why licensing data are not used more frequently in transportation safety research given that many state laws permit access for non-governmental researchers. Reforming state laws to clarify and increase access to identifiable individual-level crash report data is an important priority for transportation safety advocates and researchers.
可识别的个人层面的驾驶执照和机动车碰撞数据对于推进交通安全研究至关重要。然而，使用此类数据的流行病学研究很少，这可能反映了它们难以获得。我们进行了一项法律映射研究，以评估美国各州法律对获取驾驶执照和机动车碰撞数据用于科学研究的规定。
检索了美国 50 个州和哥伦比亚特区（D.C.）所有州的法律法规，以规范驾驶执照和机动车碰撞数据的发布。评估法律文本，以确定这些司法管辖区是否授权非政府研究机构发布可识别的个人层面的许可和碰撞数据。
36 个州和 D.C. 明确授权向研究人员发布可识别的个人层面的许可数据。只有五个州和 D.C. 授权发布可识别的个人层面的碰撞记录。没有州明确禁止发布关于许可记录的个人层面数据，只有三个州禁止发布个人层面碰撞记录数据，这意味着在许多州，是否以及何时允许向研究人员发布此类数据尚不清楚。
鉴于许多州的法律允许非政府研究人员获取许可数据，了解为什么在交通安全研究中不更频繁地使用许可数据非常重要。改革州法律以明确和增加对可识别的个人层面碰撞报告数据的访问权限，是交通安全倡导者和研究人员的重要优先事项。
