Report · Updated annually
Where Georgia Crash Data Comes From
A plain-English guide to the official datasets behind every Georgia crash statistic
The short version
Georgia crash statistics come from three official sources: the Georgia Department of Transportation crash database, the Georgia Governor's Office of Highway Safety annual reports, and the federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) maintained by NHTSA.
Most crash numbers quoted online are recycled without a source. This report explains which datasets are authoritative for Georgia, what each one actually measures, how far behind real time they run, and how we use them when investigating a corridor or intersection.
Crash data is useful for exactly two things in an injury case: showing that a location or corridor has a documented pattern, and rebutting the claim that a collision was a freak, unforeseeable event. It is not a substitute for the evidence in your own case.
GDOT compiles reported crashes from law enforcement agencies statewide. Because it is built from officer reports, it undercounts minor collisions where no report was filed and reflects the officer's contributing-factor coding rather than a legal fault finding.
NHTSA's FARS covers only crashes involving a death on a public road within thirty days of the collision. It is the most rigorous dataset available, and also the slowest — final files typically publish well over a year after the year ends.
The Governor's Office of Highway Safety publishes annual summaries aimed at prevention programs, which are useful for trend context but reflect preliminary numbers that are later revised.
When we investigate a corridor for a client, we pair these datasets with the specific crash report, scene photographs, roadway design records and any available surveillance video. The statistics tell us where to look; the case evidence decides the claim.
Methodology
How we built this
We rely only on primary government datasets. Reported crash counts come from law enforcement crash reports compiled by GDOT. Fatality figures are cross-checked against NHTSA FARS, which uses a fixed 30-day death definition and is finalized roughly a year and a half after the calendar year closes. Where the two disagree, we cite both and explain the definitional difference rather than averaging them.
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