Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting (2014) / Chapter Skim
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Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting P A R T 2
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17 C H A P T E R 1 The key to an effective crash reporting system lies in the establishment and maintenance of open communication and formal relationship between tribes and the state agency. This section is dedicated to providing guidance on how a state agency and tribe can maintain effective communication and develop mutual understanding.
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18 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting Figure 2 briefly illustrates the role of the tribal liaison within the whole communication network of the state agency and tribal governments. Some states have designated full-time tribal liaison positions while other states have personnel at different positions who serve as tribal liaisons as part of a broader job description.
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Establishing and Maintaining Communication and Relationship Between Tribes and States 19 tribal liaison, the Wisconsin DOT identified regional tribal liaisons tasked with working directly with tribes on regional issues in addition to specific duties related to their job descriptions. In instances where there are numerous tribes in a region, these responsibilities can take up significant time.
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20 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting • Recognize the importance of collaborative partnerships and respect the knowledge, experience, perspectives, and needs of the other partners; • Move forward the shared goals of the stakeholders and constituents through improved working relationships and partnership building; • Work together to develop an effective and efficient consultation framework, ensuring the long-term prosperity of this agreement; • Agree to dedicate the appropriate level of resources to achieve success; • Recognize and support the need to engage the shared strength, skills, and expertise in a collaborative effort to achieve success in transportation related activities; and • Pledge to work together in a proactive and cooperative manner. Also within the partnership agreement, the parties identified "areas of partnership emphasis with the goal of defining means to measure partnership achievements." These areas include: • Partnership; • Transportation safety; • Economic development; • Building capacity of tribally run businesses; • Native American labor development; • Training; and • Cultural resources.
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Establishing and Maintaining Communication and Relationship Between Tribes and States 21 numbers, email addresses, and mailing addresses when they need to consult with the tribal agency. Typical practice of maintaining a tribal contact database includes: • The state agency creates and maintains a tribal contact list, which at least includes tribe's name, the names and contact information of tribal leader, tribal environmental officials, and tribal law enforcement and safety officials.
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22 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting with historical ties to the state. The Washington DOT has a communication protocol that assists the DOT staff when communicating with tribal governments, and a tribal consultation protocol that directs Washington DOT staffs to consult with tribes regarding their individual rights and interests.
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Establishing and Maintaining Communication and Relationship Between Tribes and States 23 • The appropriate tribal staff as identified by the tribe; • For letters regarding statewide policy issues going to all tribes, copied to Washington Indian Transportation Policy Advisory Committee (WITPAC) delegates, alternates, and designated staff members; and • Respective Washington DOT staff according to internal protocol.
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24 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting systems is the tribe's concern about sharing the crash data with the state agency. These concerns include: • Program or technical issues • Tribal regulations and sovereignty • Fear of ‘double jeopardy' • Political difference • Private concerns • Local customs The most common reason for not sharing data is a lack of funding programs or technical resources to complete the effort.
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Establishing and Maintaining Communication and Relationship Between Tribes and States 25 In addition to this toolbox, this document further identifies best collaboration practices for facilitating 3C between transportation agencies and tribes along with several processes designed to implement them. Tribes and state agencies initiating crash data reporting systems may gain additional insight in developing and maintaining the necessary communication and cooperation methods through the use of this document.
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26 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting Situation Minnesota has 11 recognized tribes in the state. Before the tribal liaison position was created in 2001, there was little formal state-tribal coordination, although the Minnesota DOT's Central Offices and Districts had been working with tribes on archaeological issues, equal employment opportunity efforts, and other transportation projects of tribal interest.
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Establishing and Maintaining Communication and Relationship Between Tribes and States 27 included BIA engineers in these conferences to improve state-BIA planning coordination, and simultaneously efforts were underway to improve state-tribal coordination. Having the TTAC in the conference was another way to improve coordination of tribal TIPs and the STIP; and • Tribal liaison also coordinated trainings for Minnesota DOT staff on tribal historical perspectives, legal issues, tribal sovereignty, and tribal government.
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28 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting • Organization of state-tribal workshops to discuss funding opportunities such as Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) , Planning Assistance for Rural Areas (PARA)
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29 C H A P T E R 2 Tribal crash data collection system is a system used by tribes to effectively document and analyze crash records. In general, the data collection system should meet the following criteria: • The system uses a standard crash report form such as the state crash report form or a form specifically developed based on the state crash report form.
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30 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting • Basis for safety improvements and reductions in crashes; and • More opportunities of leveraging funding for addressing traffic safety issues on tribal lands with the collected crash datasets. A good example of conveying the benefits of crash reporting can be found with the Montana DOT.
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Tribal Crash Data Collection System 31 practice, the completeness and accuracy of tribal crash data can be improved by training provided to tribal law enforcement officers and via data collection software as well as crash database. Related discussion can be found in Topics 2.5, 2.6 and the case study at the end of this chapter.
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32 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting state. The law enforcement responsibility is then shared by the tribe, the city, and the state.
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Tribal Crash Data Collection System 33 Future federal legislation is likely to create new and/or expanded funding opportunities for the development, crash data collection, and maintenance of tribal crash data. Communication with state and federal partners is critical in identifying these funding sources.
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34 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting sheriff departments in Wisconsin is the standard MV4000 Wisconsin report form in its paper form, or through the electronic version called Badger Traffic and Criminal Software (TraCS)
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Tribal Crash Data Collection System 35 • The state of Idaho provided eIMPACT, Idaho's data collection software to tribes free of charge; • South Dakota provided the TraCS electronic crash reporting software free with installation and training; • The Arizona DOT provided TraCS software to any law enforcement agency within the state of Arizona including tribes; • The Washington DOT had a crash reporting system available to tribes for their usage, which is called the Collision Data Analysis Tool (CDAT)
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36 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting of the 48 queried tribes have a crash database in place. Seven of these eight tribes have methods in place to evaluate the completeness (absence of blank fields)
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Tribal Crash Data Collection System 37 Identified Issues The issues involved in the crash data collection phase were identified to be the following: • Issue 1: Inconsistent training for officers who work on reservations through BIA. The inconsistency also was due to the lack of communication about new forms and procedures in place at the SDDPS.
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38 C H A P T E R 3 An essential component of an effective crash reporting system is tribes' sharing the collected crash data with the state agency, even when certain information on the crash report may be redacted (e.g., removal of names of the tribal members or other identifying information from a crash report)
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State-Tribal Crash Data Sharing 39 Accurate and complete crash data can be confidently used to develop safety models that can provide specific information on problem areas, causal factors, and behavioral factors involved and how they affect the severity of crashes (Shinstine and Ksaibati 2013-1)
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40 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting Approximately 33% of the queried tribes were aware of the benefits of an effective tribal crash reporting system by noting one or more of the benefits listed above. For example, a tribal law enforcement officer stated, "An effective crash reporting system can help implement ideas from the safety plan.
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State-Tribal Crash Data Sharing 41 Law 280) is a federal law mandating a transfer of federal law enforcement authority within certain tribal nations to state governments.
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42 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting Tribes may choose to withhold certain information from the crash data when reporting the crash data to the state agency. Whether the information is withheld should be stated in the MOU.
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State-Tribal Crash Data Sharing 43 Menominee County contains two law enforcement agencies, the Menominee County Sheriff Department and the Menominee Nation Tribal Police Department. When a crash occurs in Menominee County, the Menominee Tribal Police Department conducts the investigation and writes the report of any tribal members involved in the crash.
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44 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting As sovereign nations, the tribes in South Dakota have a formal relationship with the federal government, not the state. Therefore, conflicts have arisen during the process of reporting crashes to the SDDPS.
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State-Tribal Crash Data Sharing 45 owned by the state. Therefore the state is responsible for crash reporting on all the tribal roads.
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46 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting Practice Implemented Practice has been implemented to address the tribal crash data processing and sharing issues: • Practice to address Issue 1: The state crash database has the function of validating the accuracy and completeness of the entered crash reports. Electronic records from TraCS systems are typically logged in the state database compatibly.
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47 C H A P T E R 4 The ultimate purpose of implementing the tribal crash reporting system is to fully utilize the collected tribal crash data in identifying and addressing traffic safety issues on tribal roads. This section covers topics related to how tribes and the state collaborate to improve tribal traffic safety using the reported tribal crash data.
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48 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting • Montana conducts Native American crash data analysis annually with available data. • The North Dakota DOT provides assistance to tribes in mapping the crashes using the data; • The Washington DOT conducts general tribal crash analysis.
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Improving Tribal Traffic Safety Using Crash Data 49 developing, and implementing transportation projects and services from the Native American community (California DOT 2013)
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50 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting • Step 4: Level II Field Evaluation to Identify Countermeasures: performed to determine proper countermeasures. The evaluation teams should be determined by the tribes and should include tribal personnel and transportation experts.
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Improving Tribal Traffic Safety Using Crash Data 51 The application of this methodology requires collaboration among safety stakeholders, which possibly include DOT, tribal leadership, LTAP, TTAP, BIA, and local and tribal law enforcement programs for tribes. Flexibility is needed so that the tribes can adjust the process to fit their unique operations.
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52 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting • Development of a highway safety plan designed to reduce traffic accidents and deaths, injuries, and property damage; • Collecting data on traffic-related deaths, injuries and accidents; • Impaired driver initiatives; • Child safety seat programs; and • Purchasing necessary specific traffic enforcement equipment, such as radar equipment, breath analyzer, or video cameras. Some other major funding opportunities from the federal government include HSIP, HRRR offered by MAP-21, and the state and Community Highway Safety Grants Program (Section 402)
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Improving Tribal Traffic Safety Using Crash Data 53 Federal funds within the HSIP may be used to implement the infrastructure based improvements identified within a safety plan. HSIP funding is administered by each state's DOT.
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54 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting searches. For example, in Michigan, the local safety initiative does help tribal agencies determine which funding sources are available based on roadway classification and crash data.
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Improving Tribal Traffic Safety Using Crash Data 55 • Three areas of responsibility were assigned to the process. WYT2-LTAP was responsible for performing the crash analysis, crash ranking, Level I field ranking, and combined ranking; identifying crash types; determining accident reduction factors; and performing the benefitcost analysis.
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56 Guide for Effective Tribal Crash Reporting The first phase of the report titled "Improving crash reporting on Wisconsin Indian Reservations, Phase 1: Review of crash reporting procedures" was intended to provide the department with a better understanding of how crash reporting was being conducted within tribal communities in the state. The second phase titled "Crashes on Wisconsin Indian reservations: Reporting, conclusions and recommendations" looked at the crash data available for the tribes in the state, analyzed the data to determine safety issues and made recommendations.
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