The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles is making it easier for citizens to see street-level views of traffic accidents through a new feature on its website.

The DMV recently added the new feature to its interactive crash database using Google mapping functionality.

“”The new feature has a wide-range of benefits for safety advocates and the general public,” said DMV Commissioner Richard D. Holcomb. “For example, if you are relocating to Virginia, you can use this feature to find out how many crashes, if any, happened on the street where you are moving.”

The new feature is a map of Virginia containing all of the Commonwealth’s roads. To find details about crashes that happened at a certain intersection or road, users hold down the left shift key and draw a square on the map with their mouse around a specific area of the state.

Red triangles indicate a fatal crash occurred, and yellow and green dots indicate an injury or property damage associated with the crash. If users roll their mouse over the triangle or dot, details including time, weather conditions and a causative factor appear. The new interactive map is available at http://www.dmvNOW.com/crashmap.

The crash map is part of DMV’s automated Traffic Records Electronic Data System (TREDS) that centralizes all of Virginia's crash data and related information. The public gained access to TREDS for the first time last August and citizens can now search for general information about crashes statewide or in a specific locality, and create custom reports with date ranges that include crashes with injuries, fatalities or both. No personal driver information is published.

TREDS is Virginia's "one-stop-shop" for accurate, timely and detailed highway safety information for analysis and reporting. TREDS data is used to support Virginia's efforts to reduce crashes, injuries, fatalities and associated costs.

Since the launch of TREDS, safety advocates are studying a more complete picture of crashes and their true impact on the Commonwealth. Vehicle crash data from DMV, crash location and road information from VDOT, data from ambulances and other rescue vehicles, data from the trauma registry, hospital discharge data and vital records databases will be all tied together under TREDS.

"Linking the data together in a common format is efficient and creates more comprehensive, accurate crash statistics," Holcomb said. “ TREDS gives us a 360-degree view of crashes and their causes, which can aid in preventing future traffic fatalities."