USCG Boat Recall Data - Web Scraper

Michael Nolan

Created: 2023.01.25

Updated: 2023.01.26 (added extended data table)

Introduction

The U.S. Coast Guard makes boat recall data going back to the early 1980's publicly available here: https://uscgboating.org/content/recalls.php. This was brought to my attention by the great newsletter data-is-plural which shares a weekly list of fun publicly available datasets for you to poke at and plot out. Unfortunately, this boat recall dataset isn't readily downloadable as a table file. I quickly wrote this web scraper to collect that data into a single CSV file.

Dependencies

• numpy
• pandas
• tqdm

Contents

• scrape_uscg_boat_recall_data.py is a python script that scrapes the recalls website. Use this to generate the data table and extended data table.
• uscg_boat_recalls.csv is a CSV table file containing information about individual boat recalls in the U.S.
  • Fields:
    • Number: alphanumeric ID for each recall
    • MIC: Manufacturer's ID Code
    • Company Name: the company name associated with the recall. There's some slop here - 'YAMAHA MOTOR CORP USA', 'YAMAHA CORP USA' and 'YAMAHA MOTOR CORP' all exist as separate IDs in the table.
    • Model Name: the model of the boat or watercraft being recalled.
    • Problem 1: reason for the recall
    • Last Date: recall date. NOTE: ~100 or so recall entries have a value of 1970-01-01 that appears to be the default when a date is not given. There's a large discontinuity between that date and the next which is in early 1980.
• uscg_boat_recalls_ext.csv is a csv table file containing extended information about individual boat recalls in the U.S. Contains more data than uscg_boat_recalls.csv
  • Fields:
    • Number: alphanumeric ID for each recall
    • MIC: Manufacturer's ID Code
    • Company Name: the company name associated with the recall. There's some slop here - 'YAMAHA MOTOR CORP USA', 'YAMAHA CORP USA' and 'YAMAHA MOTOR CORP' all exist as separate IDs in the table.
    • Model Name: the model of the boat or watercraft being recalled.
    • Problem 1: reason for the recall
    • Problem 2: optional 2nd reason for recall
    • Last Date: recall date. NOTE: ~100 or so recall entries have a value of 1970-01-01 that appears to be the default when a date is not given. There's a large discontinuity between that date and the next which is in early 1980.
    • Boat Type: numeric values, I assume this is a length measurement
    • Campaign Open Date: start date of recall campaign
    • Campaign Close Date: end date of recall campaign
    • Case Open Date: start date of recall case
    • Case Close Date: end data of recall case
    • Company: company name
    • Company Official: alphanumeric code associated with company
    • Disposition: 'Open' or 'Closed', indicates recall status. Note: messy inputs, 'Closed' and 'closed', etc. Needs further cleaning.
    • HIN: Hull Identification Number
    • Model Year: watercraft model year or years affected
    • Severity: values are 'L', 'M', 'H', 'S' and '1'. Note: I assume this is low, med, high. Not sure about S or 1. Inputs messy, e.g. both 'h' and 'H' in table. Needs further cleaning.
    • Units: number of watercraft affected