Last week I posted a link to the NYC Congestion Zone Live Crash Tracker, an interactive map of car crashes in New York City. If you live outside of New York then you might prefer Roadway Report instead, which is a visualization of American roadway fatalities in the 21st Century.
The Roadway Report map uses road traffic accident data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatality Analysis Reporting System database, to show road fatalities since 2001 across the whole United States. The map's 'About' page warns however that 'There are four unmapped deaths for every death on the map'.
The map itself comes with a limited number of options to filter the fatalities shown on the map by date range and by 'driver / passenger' deaths or by 'pedestrian / bike / other deaths'. If you zoom in your neighborhood on the map you quickly get a sense about where the accident black spots in your town are located. You can even click on the map markers to view an incredible number of details about each individual crash, including (but not limited to) the date and time, the number and type of vehicles involved, the number of fatalities, and the weather.
The extent of the details in the database for Roadway Report means that a much better map could be created using the Roadway Report API. For example you could use the API to create a map which showed local vehicle fatalities by time of day and day of the week, or all road fatalities which involved alcohol and/or drug use.
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