Issue
As of May 2021, CDOR is now requiring all CO agencies to submit their crash data using the new dr3447 report format. Pd’ Programming has identified a discrepancy in the new Road Description field codes. This article addresses that discrepancy.
Explanation
In the older dr2447 report, the “Road Description” field contains a value for “Alley Related” represented with a value of “5”. The dr3447 adds a new value to that field called “Crossover-Related”. In the CDOR “Data Model” spreadsheet, this new value is represented with the value “11”. This value keeps with the STRAC stated commitment to not re-use or change old values when adding new ones. Pd’ Programming believes this to be the “correct” and intended values for those fields.
Update 7/10/2021: Per CDOR, Pd’ Programming’s assumption has been incorrect. For dr3447 reports, the value of 5 is now to be used to reflect “crossover” collisions and “alley” collisions should now be coded with the value 11. This corresponds with the hard-copy reports, but not with the data model.
The reason for writing this article still exists even though we have resolution from the CDOR. We will leave it published to explain our process around this field.
For Crash Magic users that are reconfigured for the dr3447 by Pd’ Programming, we will be updating the lookup tables to reflect this change. We will also convert all of your historic “5” alley values to 11. There has not been an 11 before, so no other changes will be necessary. By default, no changes will be made to the values at import time. If your agency or vendor has used the CDOR data model as their guide and “5” still means “alley”, they should either change to the CDOR specification, or alert us to perform a 5 <-> 11 swap at import time.
STRAC dr3447 web site: www.codot.gov/about/committees/strac/dr3447
However, in the final published documentation for the dr3447, the two values were swapped. On the printed crash report forms and the online report form images, “Alley Related” is represented by an “11”. “Crossover-Related” is represented as a “5”. The final “Data Model” documents do not reflect the same values. They still have the original, and we believe, correct values.
Here is the Data Model for Road Description provided by the DOR:
Here is the section for Road Description on the dr3447 officer report form:
Solution
The CDOR has weighed in – thanks to Scott Spinks and Doug Simington for being very responsive to our questions. As indicated in the update above, Pd’ Programming will use the value 5 to indicate crossover and the value 11 for alley related crashes. Please alert us if your agency uses different codes so that we may accommodate that in your configuration.