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Average Emergency Response Time - US
Using the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) average emergency response time data for rural and urban automobile accidents involving fatalities, we have calculated the national average response time to be 9.98 minutes. This information has been entered into row 2, column C of the attached spreadsheet, with the resources used having been entered into row 2, Column D. The methodology and calculations are below.
Methodology
The NHTSA compiles average emergency response time to automobile accidents involving fatalities, but the organization has not released its 2017 data yet, so this report relies on the most recent data available from 2016. The NHTSA segments that data into rural response times and urban response times, so to find an overall national average response time, we have added the rural average and the urban average together and divided by two.
Please note that to access the tables for 2016, you must visit the Traffic Safety Facts Annual Report Tables page, click on "States," then on "States: Emergency Medical Services," then on Table 122 for rural statistics and on Table 123 for urban statistics.
Calculations
In 2016, the national average emergency response time to rural automobile accidents involving fatalities was 12.92 minutes.
In 2016, the national average emergency response time to urban automobile accidents involving fatalities was 7.03 minutes.
To get the overall average, we added 12.92 to 7.03 to get 19.95. Then, we divided by two to get an average response time of 9.975, which rounds to 9.98 minutes.
This is an increase of 0.97 minutes over 2015:
12.63 + 7.18 = 19.81 / 2 = 9.91 minutes
9.98 minutes (2016) minus 9.91 minutes (2015) = an increase of 0.97 minutes.
Conclusion
The national average emergency response times to automobile accidents involving fatalities of 9.98 minutes has been added to the attached spreadsheet.