ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · IOWA, IA · 2021
Purpose: Machine-readable JSON endpoint for AI agents, LLMs, researchers, and programmatic consumers. Returns all underlying crash data and AI-generated commentary without HTML.
Authentication: None required. Public endpoint.
GET: https://thatcarhitme.com/api/crash-data/reports/data/iowa/statewide/2021-annual-report
Yearly Traffic Safety Analysis
1,005 CRASHES IN
IOWA, IA
2021
In 2021, Cerro Gordo County recorded 1,005 vehicle crashes, a 17.7% increase from the 854 crashes documented in 2020. This rise was accompanied by a significant increase in crash severity. The most notable year-over-year change was in crash-related fatalities, which rose from 2 in 2020 to 8 in 2021.
1,005
▲ 17.7%was 854
Total Crash Events
8
▲ 300.0%was 2
Persons Killed
313
▲ 29.9%was 241
Persons Injured
8
▲ 300.0%was 2
Fatal Crash Events
Note: "Persons Killed" (8) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (8) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities.
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Overall traffic crash trends in Cerro Gordo County showed a notable increase from 2020 to 2021. The total number of crashes rose by 151 incidents from 854 to 1,005. This was accompanied by a rise in total injuries from 241 to 313 and an increase in fatalities from 2 to 8.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
1
Pedestrians Killed
2
Cyclists Killed
5
Motorists Killed
0
Other Killed
7
Pedestrians Injured
11
Cyclists Injured
294
Motorists Injured
1
Other Injured
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Mode classified from person records (driver/passenger → motorist; pedestrian; bicyclist → cyclist; in-line skater / unspecified → other)
When Crashes Happen
The temporal patterns of crashes remained largely consistent year-over-year. Friday was the peak day for crashes in both 2021 (161 crashes) and 2020 (147 crashes). The peak hour for collisions shifted slightly earlier, from 6 p.m. in 2020 (73 crashes) to 5 p.m. in 2021 (80 crashes), with both periods showing elevated crash volumes during the evening commute.
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
Crash severity worsened in 2021 compared to the prior year. The number of fatal crashes increased from 2 to 8, raising the fatal crash rate from 0.2% to 0.8% of all incidents. While the proportion of serious injury crashes remained stable at 1.3%, the share of minor injury crashes grew from 7.3% in 2020 to 8.5% in 2021. Consequently, the proportion of crashes with no injuries decreased from 76.7% to 74.6%.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution (Crash Events)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
Collisions involving an animal remained the leading contributing factor in both periods, with the count of such incidents increasing from 154 in 2020 to 168 in 2021. The number of crashes attributed to 'Followed too close' saw a significant rise, jumping from 58 to 99 incidents, making it the second-most cited factor in 2021. Conversely, crashes where 'Driving too fast for conditions' was a factor decreased in count from 59 to 49. Crashes involving 'Failure to yield from a stop sign' also increased from 57 to 67 incidents.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
The distribution of environmental conditions during crashes was largely unchanged between 2020 and 2021. Crashes in clear weather and daylight conditions continued to make up the majority of incidents, with their share of total crashes remaining stable. Similarly, crashes on dry road surfaces represented about 65% of all incidents in 2021, a slight proportional increase from 63% in the prior year, with no significant shifts in the proportions of adverse condition crashes.
Weather
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
Analysis of vehicle makes involved in crashes shows that Chevrolet (356 vehicles) and Ford (324 vehicles) remained the top two makes in 2021, consistent with their rankings in 2020. The demographic distribution of persons involved in crashes saw a notable shift in the 55-64 age group, whose count increased from 220 individuals in 2020 to 300 in 2021. Other age groups saw increases in involvement that were more proportional to the overall rise in crashes.
Top Vehicle Makes (1,706 vehicles)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Vehicle unit records
306 persons with unknown or unrecorded age excluded from age chart.
Sex Distribution (1,371 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Person-level records linked to crash events
Data Sources & Methodology
Primary Data Source
All crash data in this report is sourced from Iowa Crash Data, accessed programmatically via the ArcGIS Open Data API (SODA). This dataset contains official police-reported motor vehicle traffic crash records maintained by the reporting jurisdiction's law enforcement agency. Records are published to the open data portal by the municipality and are subject to the portal's terms of use.
Data Retrieval
- Access method: ArcGIS Open Data API (SoQL queries)
- Data format: Structured JSON via REST API
- Record types queried: Crash events, person records, and vehicle unit records
- Date filter applied: 2021-01-01 through 2021-12-31
- Report generated: September 9, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2021-01-01 through 2021-12-31 (365 days)
- Geographic scope: iowa, IA
- Total crash records analyzed: 1,005
- Total persons involved: 2,141
- Total vehicles involved: 1,706
Analytical Methodology
- Severity classification: Uses the KABCO injury scale (K=Fatal, A=Incapacitating injury, B=Non-incapacitating injury, C=Possible injury, O=No injury/property damage only), the standard classification in U.S. Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria (MMUCC). Severity is assigned per crash event based on the most severe injury in that crash. A single fatal crash (K) may involve multiple fatalities; therefore the "Persons Killed" count in the headline KPIs may differ from the "Fatal" crash count in the severity breakdown.
- Contributing factors: Reflect the officer-determined primary contributory cause recorded at the time of the crash report. These are preliminary determinations and may not reflect final investigation findings.
- Hit-and-run classification: Based on the hit-and-run indicator field in the official crash report, as determined by the responding officer at the scene.
- Temporal analysis: Day-of-week and hour-of-day distributions are computed from the crash date/time timestamp in each record.
- Demographics: Age and sex distributions are drawn from person-level records linked to each crash event. A single crash may involve multiple persons.
- Vehicle data: Make information is drawn from vehicle unit records linked to each crash event.
- AI commentary: Narrative sections are generated by Google Gemini (large language model) based on the structured data. Commentary is descriptive, not predictive, and should not be interpreted as expert opinion.
Limitations & Disclaimers
- Only crashes reported to and documented by law enforcement are included. Minor incidents, unreported crashes, and near-misses are not captured in this dataset.
- Data reflects conditions at the time of the initial police report and may be subject to subsequent corrections, reclassifications, or supplements by the reporting agency.
- Open data portal records may experience a publication lag - recently occurring crashes may not yet appear in the dataset at the time of report generation.
- AI-generated commentary is produced by a large language model and is intended to highlight patterns in the data. It does not constitute legal, medical, or professional analysis.
- Percentages are calculated from reported data and are subject to rounding.
Non-Affiliation Disclosure
This report is produced independently by ThatCarHitMe.com (Injuria.ai). It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced in partnership with any law enforcement agency, municipal government, state department of transportation, or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Data is sourced from publicly available government open data portals.
Data License
The underlying crash data is provided under the municipality's Open Data Terms of Use and is made available to the public for unrestricted use. This analysis and report is © 2026 Injuria.ai and may be cited with attribution using the suggested citation below.
Corrections & Feedback
If you believe any data in this report is inaccurate or have questions about our methodology, please contact: data@injuria.ai. We are committed to accuracy and will issue corrections promptly.
Suggested Citation
ThatCarHitMe.com (Injuria.ai). "iowa, IA Crash Intelligence Report: 2021." Published September 9, 2026. Reporting period: 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31. Data source: Iowa Crash Data, ArcGIS Open Data. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/iowa/statewide/2021-annual-report
About the Publisher
ThatCarHitMe.com is a crash data intelligence platform developed by Injuria.ai, a legal technology company specializing in traffic safety analytics. We aggregate and analyze publicly available government crash data to produce structured intelligence reports for communities, researchers, journalists, and legal professionals. Our reports combine programmatic data retrieval from official open data portals with AI-assisted narrative analysis.
Questions about this report's data or methodology: data@injuria.ai
ThatCarHitMe.com · An Injuria.ai Company
ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
Crash Data Intelligence
Data: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS
Period: 2021-01-01 – 2021-12-31
Generated: September 9, 2026 · All rights reserved