Distress surveys are one element of the monitoring effort currently under way by the Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP) for the Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) study. Because accurate data are key to the success of the LTPP study, SHRP has developed and implemented an accreditation process to ensure the quality of distress data collected from manual surveys. The purpose of SHRP's accreditation process is to provide a means for ensuring, to the extent possible, the quality and consistency of distress data being collected by the raters. The process consists of two parts, a written examination and a two-part field survey examination, and is being administered in a workshop situation. Although the process is still in its early stages, it is SHRP's intent that all distress data for the LTPP study be collected by raters who have successfully completed the accreditation. The SHRP accreditation process and the results of its implementation to date are discussed.