In September of 1966, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 1381) was signed into law in the United States. The Act specifies that the Secretary of Transportation shall establish appropriate Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards that would lead to the reduction of the number of deaths and injuries resulting from motor vehicle accidents. In prescribing standards, the Secretary was to consider: (1) relevant motor vehicle safety data, (2) whether the proposed standard is reasonable, practical, and appropriate for the particular type of motor vehicle equipment for which it is prescribed, and (3) the extent to which such standards contribute to carrying out the purposes of the Act. In order to meet the above requirements, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been mandated to develop safety standards. For each proposed regulation, an extensive research program is undertaken to ensure that the proposed standard satisfies the requirements of the Act. An analytical tool that has been utilized to support the research program is the NHTSA crash test data base. For each test conducted for the agency, a formatted magnetic data submission on diskette is generated. The diskette contains specifications about the test as well as the measurement data acquired from the test instrumentation. The specification data is loaded into a data base which has routine data base functions. Analysis techniques are developed for evaluation of the measurement data. This data base was initiated in 1978 and currently contains results from over 2,000 crash tests. An important attribute of this data base is that it provides a standardized format that allows for exchange of data among participating researchers.