In March 2001, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released its early assessment estimates for motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2000 and the resulting injuries and fatalities. These early assessment numbers, based on NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and the National Automotive Sampling System General Estimates System (NASS GES), estimate that highway fatalities increased by 0.5 percent from 1999 to 2000, while injuries decreased by about 0.4 percent.
However, NHTSA cautions that its early assessment estimates are based on data that are incomplete or preliminary. For example, both FARS and NASS GES data for the earlier months of 2000 are likely to be more complete than data for later months. Therefore, fatality and injury estimates for the year were obtained by combining the more complete data from earlier months with data for later months that were extrapolated from 1999 data. For FARS, the degree of completion of 2000 data varies by state.NASS GES uses extrapolated data for the final three months of the year. NHTSA also used projected vehicle-miles of travel from the Federal Highway Administration to estimate fatality rates.