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No Field for the Repair

Written 2026-09-13. Claims re-read against their sources on 2026-09-27: 10 checked, 6 confirmed, 4 wrong, 0 unverifiable. By claims-audit controls 2026-09-27 (audit agent + fix agent).

Audit: research/claims-audit/findings/r3.md (8 claims: 7 confirmed, 1 unverifiable, 4 findings). The fix agent re-read FHWA-RD-01-020's summary page, the Coding Guide's item 106 text, 23 CFR 650.311 from the eCFR API, and the layer's own figures (research/no-field-for-the-repair/out/figures.json). The page is generated: edits went into research/no-field-for-the-repair/build-page.mjs and the page was rebuilt with it (figures.json and bridges.json came back byte-identical; the heading anchors a site-wide script had added were restored by hand, since that script writes every page). Verifier before: verify-no-field-for-the-repair.mjs 341 passed, 0 failed. After: 341, 0.

Claims

• WRONG dek: 22,747 reversals climbing two points or more are "beyond the outer edge of the inspector-to-inspector spread FHWA measured in 2001" (page body: "at or beyond the outer edge")
  https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/nde/01020.cfm : "Condition Ratings assigned varied over a range of up to five different ratings ... 95 percent will vary within two points"; by the page's own byMagnitude only 300 reversals climbed 5+, 1,032 climbed 4+, 18,444 climbed exactly 2
• WRONG asking for filing-unit-years with no change at all, "Five came back"; "Kentucky repeats the pattern in 2005 and 2007"
  research/no-field-for-the-repair/out/figures.json : quietUnitYears is the five unit-years with under 1% changes and under 5% of dates advanced; only KY 2002 and RI 2004 have 0 changes; KY 2004 has 28 changes and 45 dates advanced, KY 2006 12 and 15, NV 2005 16 and 23
• MINOR dek: Kentucky's 2003 submission reworks the route fields of 13,493 bridges
  research/no-field-for-the-repair/out/figures.json : 13,493 appears nowhere in the data or page; KY 2002 bridges 13,432 (13,423 inspection-date pairs); the page says "essentially every bridge"
• MINOR "Every highway bridge in the United States is inspected at least every two years"
  https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-23/section-650.311 : 24 months is the regular limit; extended intervals of up to 48 months (Method 1) and 72 months (Method 2) are allowed for qualifying bridges
• CONFIRMED FHWA reliability study quotation and "49 inspectors from 25 state agencies" at seven test bridges
  https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/nde/01020.cfm : quotation verbatim; "49 inspectors from 25 State agencies"
• CONFIRMED Coding Guide item 106 requires Federal-aid eligibility and lists painting, overlay, emergency repair, retrofitting, added substructure element or girder as not reconstruction
  https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/mtguide.pdf : text of Item 106 matches the page's quotation (with its marked elisions)
• CONFIRMED 23 CFR 650.311 sets 12-month intervals for bridges with a component rated 3 or less
  https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-23/section-650.311 : (a)(1)(ii)(B)
• CONFIRMED Kentucky 2003: 34,651 ratings, 0 changed, 0 of 13,423 inspection dates advanced; Rhode Island 2005: 2,117 ratings, 0 changed, 0 of 748
  research/no-field-for-the-repair/out/figures.json : quietUnitYears KY 2002 and RI 2004 entries
• CONFIRMED 220,613 reversals, 22,747 of two points or more, 197,866 single-point
  research/no-field-for-the-repair/out/figures.json : reversals.total, magnitudeTwoOrMore, byMagnitude
• CONFIRMED FHWA's 2001 study predicts only 68 per cent within one point of the average (ground note to twenty-nine-teams-one-dataset)
  https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/nde/01020.cfm : "only 68 percent of the Condition Ratings will vary within one rating point of the average"

What was done

• [fixed] "beyond the outer edge" removed from the dek and page body: the 22,747 are outside FHWA's one-point example tolerance, mostly inside the measured spread, and 300 (five points or more) are wider than the study's whole range; the 300 is computed from figures.json by build-page.mjs; dated correction in the page footer and the ground note
• [fixed] "Five came back" is now "Two came back" (computed from the zero-change entries), and "Kentucky repeats the pattern" now gives the 2005 and 2007 counts (28 of 35,144 and 12 of 35,033 ratings changed; 45 of 13,677 and 15 of 13,641 dates advanced); dated correction in the footer
• [fixed] dek's 13,493 replaced with "essentially all of the state's 13,432 bridges"; dated correction in the ground note
• [fixed] lede now says bridges are inspected on a federal schedule, most every two years, with 12 months for some and up to 48 or 72 for others, citing 23 CFR 650.311; dated correction in the footer