How we handle facts and figures

What every figure on this site has to carry

• A named source, a link and a date. The components that print figures refuse to print one without them, so an unsourced number cannot appear by accident.
• The area it really describes. A county's crash count is labelled as the county's and never as a city's, and nothing is divided down to a smaller area.
• The amount as reported. Gross reported settlements and awards only: never an average, and never an estimate of fees or of what someone received.
• What it cannot tell you. A reported outcome is someone else's case. It is not our result, not typical and not a prediction for anyone.

The public data behind location pages

• Population: US Census Bureau population estimates.
• Cities and counties: US Census Bureau gazetteer files. A city page exists only for an incorporated city with county crash data, so most places have none.
• Fatal crashes: NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), by county, 2020–2024. Counts of crashes, not rates and not predictions.

Who checks it

Legal content is approved by a licensed attorney before it is published, and a page we can no longer stand behind is corrected or taken down rather than re-dated. The two policies below say exactly how.