Delaware announced earlier this year it had rolled out a website aimed at increasing access to the state’s crash statistics and reports — even claiming the portal would equip drivers with information to help them make safer decisions behind the wheel.
But the portal, which was publicly launched in February after being signed into law 17 months prior, has discrepancies. The most blatant being the number of fatal crashes — an issue some state officials attribute to the full crash statistics not being entered or turning fatal after the fact.
“I would trust it, but with a grain of salt,” Sen. Stephanie Hansen said of the portal. “It will tell you big picture where the problematic intersections are, what are the biggest causes of accidents and the most prevalent type of accident.”
But if the public wants specific finalized numbers, the Middletown Democrat who sponsored the legislation that created the portal said the public should get those — for now — from the state’s Annual Highway Safety Report or the Annual Traffic Statistical Report.
After learning of the variances, Hansen said she reached out to the state Department of Safety and Homeland Security which oversees Delaware’s crash reports and their dissemination. She said the department told her they recognize this is an issue and are working to fix it.
“So now that I’m aware that there’s an issue,” she said, “I will be following up with them to make sure that it gets fixed because people have to have accurate information.”
Numbers don’t add up
In reviewing the last 14 years of statistics on the portal, Delaware Online/The News Journal found that every fatal crash number the portal provided since 2009 was off when compared to the state’s annual reports.
The nearest the portal’s numbers came to annual reports occurs in 2009 when the state website claims there were 101 fatal crashes — one less than the actual number the state has counted in its annual reports.
The largest deviation takes place in last year’s numbers when the online portal claims there were 124 fatal crashes. But the annual reports say there were 146 fatal crashes in 2022, which was a record-tying year for traffic fatalities.
More:Delaware’s 2022 traffic fatalities reported 165 deaths, tying a record set in 1988
After a month of Delaware Online/The News Journal asking why these numbers were off, Department of Safety and Homeland Security spokesperson Arshon Howard said this was a lot of data for members of the state’s Office of Highway Safety (OHS) and Delaware Criminal Justice Information System (DELJIS) to enter.
He added that every month they are working to update the numbers, but did not know when the portal numbers would sync with the reports.
“You know, it’s a lot of hard-working time for people to enter that information,” he said, “which is why OHS and DELJIS are working together to try to get those numbers up more accurately.”
In her conversations with Homeland Security, Hansen said information on the open portal comes from data that officers at the scene of an accident enter into their crash reports. The crash may turn into a fatality at a later point, and while this new information is updated in the annual reports, it does not appear to make it into the portal.
“It needs to be finalized and it needs to be the same statistical information as the other two annual reports,” she said.
Delaware opens up data on crashes
The release of this data is an about-face for Delaware, which for years denied public requests for this information.
It wasn’t until Hansen sponsored legislation to increase the public’s access to the state’s accident statistics and reports that work began to create this portal.
More:Lots of crashes near you? Years of Delaware crash data now searchable to the public online
The portal was launched in August of last year and made public in February.
Howard could not say why the website was launched to the public when it wasn’t ready.
Delaware’s launching of the Public Crash Data Map and Public Crash Data Dashboard is supposed to allow users to filter crash data and view the data in charts, graphs and maps. An embedded table within the dashboard allows users to export data.
The portal is also supposed to provide years worth of crash information starting in 2009 up through six months ago.
The portal only counts fatal crashes, which do not include the number of people killed in the incidents. Hansen said she’d like to see the portal also provide the numbers of people killed in these incidents.
“At some point, all of these numbers need to match,” she said. “We need to make sure that the public has accurate information.”
Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299 or eparra@delawareonline.com.
