The Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria (“MMUCC”) 5th Edition guideline, developed cooperatively by the Governors Highway Safety Association (“GHSA”) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”), has been updated to reflect the latest behavioral and technological changes impacting vehicles, drivers, and front-line data collectors.
The voluntary MMUCC guideline identifies motor vehicle crash data elements and attributes that states are encouraged to collect and include in their crash data systems. This most recent update streamlines on-site data collection, reorganizing the guideline into context-specific modules related to the type of crash and allowing more data to be derived from the integrated systems many states now use.
“So much is changing on our roadways, and traffic fatalities are increasing at an alarming rate,” said Jonathan Adkins, the GHSA's executive director. “We need good data to make informed decisions about how to change driver behaviors and save more lives. GHSA strongly encourages states to align their crash records with MMUCC and collect comprehensive, consistent data that is critical to pinpointing regional and national trends.”
Other important updates to the MMUCC 5th Edition include guidance to help improve data quality, mapping rules to help states measure the extent to which their crash data aligns with MMUCC, and an editable MMUCC-based crash report template. A dynamic element that captures data on crashes involving autonomous vehicles (“AVs”) also has been introduced. To keep pace with rapid development in this area, the AV element will be reviewed on an annual basis, according to the GHSA.
The MMUCC 5th Edition is the result of an 18-month collaboration between the NHTSA, the GHSA, the Federal Highway Administration (“FHWA”), the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”), the National Transportation Safety Board (“NTSB”), and subject matter experts from state departments of transportation (“DOTs”), local law enforcement, emergency medical services, safety organizations, industry partners, and academia. The traffic records community and general public also contributed comments.
The next update of the MMUCC is tentatively scheduled for 2022.