A CMV (Commercial Motor Vehicle) is any motorized vehicle whose main purpose is to conduct commercial operations. For this visualization, a CMV includes:

• Commercial Bus
• Single Unit Truck (2-Axle, 6-Tire)
• Single Unit Truck (3 Or More Axles)
• Tractor/Doubles
• Tractor/Semi-Trailer
• Truck/Trailer
• Unknown Heavy Truck

It may be important to know that “commercial vehicle” is defined differently depending on the state, federal, or independent agency definition.

When you click on an item of data in the visualization, such as a bar, square, county, number, etc, it will filter the rest of the charts with that data item. For example, if you click on Wake county in the map, all the other charts will update and show data for Wake county.

To turn off this interactive filtering, simply click on the data item you clicked on. For example, if you had clicked on Wake county and wish to turn it off, simply click on Wake county again.

The two grids in the visualization can also be sorted. Clicking on a row or column will filter (the same way clicking on Wake county in the example above), but if you hover over the name you will see a tiny bar-chart-icon. Clicking on that bar-chart-icon will sort the grid based on the one you clicked on.

You can also exclude data if you wish. After clicking on a data item, the charts will filter, and after they finish reloading the same data item’s mouseover popup (a tooltip that appears when your mouse cursor is on it) will have further options appear (Keep Only and Exclude). They allow you to further restrict which data is shown to you.

The controls that appear on the map when the mouse is over the point map allow you to search for a place on the map, zoom in, zoom out, return to the original view (the house icon), or change how the mouse functions on the map.

Troops are geographic jurisdictions used by the North Carolina State Highway Patrol.

The Reporting Agency for the crash is the department that responded and reported the crash. For example, if the Raleigh Police Department reported a crash, then they are the Reporting Agency for that crash.

PDO stands for Property Damage Only. No one was significantly hurt in the crash, only property such as vehicles, roadside objects, and other forms of property.

If you click on the points in the map on the right, a small popup box will open. Clicking on the link in this box will link you to the NCDPS (North Carolina Department of Public Safety) crash reports that are public record. These reports are redacted (sensitive information removed), and are only available for crashes that were reported by the NCSHP. If you wish to know more details about the crash, please contact the associated Reporting Agency for that crash.

The road in which the crash occurred is put into the following categories:

• I = Interstate
• US = US Highway
• NC = NC Highway
• SR = Secondary Road
• LCL = Local Road

The Week at a Glace chart is showing the frequency of the crashes broken up by day and time.

For example, if a crash happened at 1:35pm on a Wednesday, then the block in the 12p-3:59p column (12 pm through 3:59 pm) and in the Wednesday row would go up by 1.

The darker the color, the more frequent that that time of day AND day of week has had such crashes.

A contributing circumstance is a known factor that was identified a contributing to the crash, and is reported on the crash report.  A contributing circumstance is not necessarily the cause of the crash. Contributing circumstances are indicators of  possible crash causes. Usually there are several reasons why a crash happened and it is difficult to determine crash causation without a full investigation and reconstruction.

The contributing circumstances provided in the chart shown are specific to the driver. There are other contributing circumstances that are part of the crash report such as road conditions and non-motorist circumstances. The chart only shows driver-specific factors.