Is the Tool Expected to Match all Fatal Crash Records Between FARS and MCMIS?
• No, it’s possible to have differences between the FARS and MCMIS databases. These databases may have different fatal crash counts due to variances in reportable vehicle configuration definitions. How does the Matching Tool determine a “matched record set”? The tool examines several variables from the FARS and MCMIS data sets. If the key variables in a record are the same or almost the same in some cases, then the tool returns a matched record set. The tool has 54 unique matching combinations that can produce a matched record set. Each matching combination requires a few variables from each data source to match exactly to produce a matched record set. The following nine variables are examined from the FARS and MCMIS data sources to produce a matched record set: county, date, time, vehicle identification number (VIN), DOT number, MC/MX number, Truck or Bus indicator, driver age, and driver license state. These matching combinations are shown in Table 1, and the definitions of each vari
