Will Milt Olin ever become a statistic?

Milt Olin died on December 8, 2013 after an L.A. County sheriff struck him from behind. The sheriff was operating a computer while driving, and faced no charges. The sheriff’s department has since revised its operating procedures to limit deputies from driving while typing.

For nearly a year now, I’ve been monitoring the SWITRS data feeds in hopes of seeing how Olin’s death gets entered into the official record. As of today, nearly twenty-one months from the date he died, I still can’t find it. The SWITRS website includes a disclaimer that “data is typically seven months behind the current date” because of processing backlogs. It may be that SWITRS has yet to release its full 2013 records, but the CHP appears to have prepared its 2013 crash reports. For the CHP at least, and for the agencies and government officials that depend on CHP reports, Milt Olin’s death may never serve even the simplest function in improving roads, that of knowing who we kill and why.

A 2011 paper that looked at San Francisco hospital admissions versus SWITRS reports showed as much as twenty-six percent of cycling injuries never hit the official records. How many deaths do we miss as well?