[1] FARS contains data on a census of fatal traffic crashes within the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
FARS data is critical to understanding the characteristics of the environment, trafficway, vehicles, and persons involved in the crash.
This data is tabulated and provided to the public via the FARS Interface at [1] In its 2010 Report to Congress, NHTSA claimed that it would cost approximately US$1 billion per year to actually count and classify all crashes.
[2] US$1 billion was deemed to be too expensive so instead of that, "... NHTSA devised a method that "utilizes an efficient combination of census, sample-based, and existing state files to provide nationally representative traffic crash data..." and it's been doing that since 1975.
FARS data is collected on a purely voluntary basis through cooperative agreements between NHTSA and each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.