Delaware’s crash data is now available to the public through the state’s open data portal.
The Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland Security collects and circulates crash data typically published in the Office of Highway Safety’s annual reports. Until now it hasn’t been publicly available in real-time.
DSHS Chief of Community relations Arshon Howard says putting the data on the portal helps give drivers the information they’ve been asking for and they hope it helps people make smarter decisions behind the wheel.
“With this information maybe it can help them become better drivers or see where roadways are hazardous and things of that nature," Howard says. "So just making that information available to the public, in our eyes, will hopefully deviate some of the traffic fatalities that we've been seeing over the years.”
Making crash data available through the portal also allows the public to engage in interactive analysis and data exploration – they can filter search results to see where crashes happen the most and keep an eye out for those hazardous areas.
“People can look at potential crash sites or hazardous roadway conditions," Howard says. "The dashboard is updated monthly so it's something that people can constantly look at for help. And this project has been about 3 years in the works. We just saw a need to expand our ability to publicly share this information.”
This project resulted from collaboration with the DSHS, Office of Highway Safety, Delaware State Police, DelDOT, Dept. of Technology and Information, Delaware Justice Information System and the Delaware Police Chiefs Council.
The dashboard contains crashes that occurred since 2009 through six months ago.
There were 165 traffic deaths on Delaware roadways in 2022, the most since 1988.
