We’re gonna have a safety-data party tonight!

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News flash: Last year, Ford Motor Co. reported 73 equipment- or vehicle-related Explorer rollovers to the federal government, resulting in 50 fatalities and 98 injuries. Of those, 27 accident reports listed faulty tires as a possible cause of the crash.

We at Up to Speed were able to find that out thanks to a new development on the car safety front.

As of today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has launched a database of serious accidents involving possible product or equipment failure. That information, known as Early Warning data, has been in use by NHTSA for five years but until today was not available to the public.

Et voila! Here it is.

But before you go nuts finding out how many people were killed in your car last year, a few caveats and observations ...

• The database is limited to accidents resulting in death, injury or significant property damage.
• The database does not include accidents in which possible equipment or vehicle failure were *not* factors, such as drunk driving, weather, acts of God, etc.
• The data are organized by reporting date, on a quarterly basis dating back to 2003, rather than by vehicle model year. As a result, finding how many 2005 Ford Explorers rolled over involves some pretty heavy database entry.
• The database is not sortable.
• The database does not yet include data on tires, baby safety seats or motorcycles. Many manufacturers of those products are petitioning to keep their information out of the database, arguing that it could reveal trade secrets. This is rather ironic, considering that it was problems with Firestone tires on Ford Explorers that led to the collection of Early Warning data in the first place.
• A source within NHTSA says that the tire makers’ confidentiality petitions are likely to be denied, which means that eventually, or even soon, that data will be available.
• Some companies either are waaay more prone to equipment failure than others, or they have different philosophies of reporting. To wit: Toyota filed 83 death and injury reports in the third quarter of last year. Ford, which at the time had nearly the same market share as Toyota, reported 250.

We noticed a few other interesting nuggets. Ferrari has never, in the five years of Early Warning data reporting, filed an accident, injury or property damage report. Aston Martin has filed only one. Porsche, meanwhile, seems to have a consistent problem: Of its 28 injury and death filings, 20 have involved potentially faulty air bags. And in the first quarter of this year, General Motors Corp. reported 38 Chevy Trailblazer injury/death accidents, compared with only 17 GMC Sierra wrecks.

At some point, NHTSA officials tell us, data on child seats and motorcycles will be included.

Then every amateur car detective -- not to mention a few ambulance chasers -- will really have some fun.

For the full story, click here.

-- Ken Bensinger