ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · IOWA, IA · 2017
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/2017-annual-report
Yearly Traffic Safety Analysis
102 CRASHES IN
IOWA, IA
2017
In 2017, Howard County recorded 102 total crashes, a 15.9% increase from the 88 crashes reported in 2016. Despite the rise in total incidents, the number of fatalities fell from one in the prior year to zero in 2017. A notable shift was the doubling of crashes involving alcohol (DUI), which increased from 2 to 4 incidents.
102
▲ 15.9%was 88
Total Crash Events
0
▼ -100.0%was 1
Persons Killed
33
▼ -5.7%was 35
Persons Injured
0
▼ -100.0%was 1
Fatal Crash Events
Note: "Persons Killed" (0) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (0) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities.
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2017-01-01 to 2017-12-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Overall, traffic crashes in Howard County increased year-over-year, rising from 88 incidents in 2016 to 102 in 2017, a 15.9% increase. While total crashes rose, the number of people injured saw a slight decrease, with 33 injuries in 2017 compared to 35 in the previous year.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
0
Motorists Killed
33
Motorists Injured
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2017-01-01 to 2017-12-31 · Mode classified from person records (driver/passenger → motorist; pedestrian; bicyclist → cyclist; in-line skater / unspecified → other)
When Crashes Happen
The temporal patterns of crashes shifted between the two periods. In 2017, the peak day for crashes was Wednesday with 20 incidents, moving from Monday (17 crashes) in 2016. The peak hour also changed, shifting from the 5 PM hour in 2016 (10 crashes) to the 8 PM hour in 2017 (9 crashes). November was the month with the most crashes in 2017, recording 21 incidents, whereas January was the peak month in 2016 with 15 crashes.
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2017-01-01 to 2017-12-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2017-01-01 to 2017-12-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
Crash severity decreased from 2016 to 2017. The county recorded zero fatal crashes in 2017, down from one fatal crash that resulted in one death the previous year. The number of crashes involving serious injuries also fell from 6 in 2016 to 2 in 2017. Consequently, the share of crashes resulting in serious injuries decreased from 6.8% to 2.0% of all incidents.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2017-01-01 to 2017-12-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution (Crash Events)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2017-01-01 to 2017-12-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
Collisions with an animal remained the top contributing factor in both periods, with the count of such crashes increasing from 31 in 2016 to 40 in 2017. "Lost Control" became a more prominent factor, as its crash count rose from 5 in 2016 to 18 in 2017, a 260% increase in count. Conversely, crashes attributed to "Ran off road - straight" decreased from 10 incidents in 2016 to 7 in 2017.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2017-01-01 to 2017-12-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
In both 2016 and 2017, the majority of crashes occurred in clear weather, during daylight hours, and on dry road surfaces. The number of crashes on dry roads was identical at 35 incidents in both years, though this represented a smaller share of the total in 2017 (34.3%) compared to 2016 (39.8%). There was a notable increase in crashes on adverse road surfaces, with incidents on ice or frost rising from 7 to 11 and those on gravel roads increasing from 5 to 9 year-over-year.
Weather
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2017-01-01 to 2017-12-31 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2017-01-01 to 2017-12-31 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2017-01-01 to 2017-12-31 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
The distribution of vehicle makes involved in crashes saw some changes between the two years. While Ford was the most common make in 2016 with 20 vehicles involved, Chevrolet became the most frequent in 2017 with a combined 37 vehicles. The age demographics of persons involved in crashes also shifted; there was an increase in the number of individuals in the 26-34 age group (from 14 to 21) and the 45-54 age group (from 19 to 29). Conversely, fewer people in the 16-20 age group (from 21 down to 17) and the 65+ age group (from 23 down to 20) were involved in crashes in 2017.
Top Vehicle Makes (134 vehicles)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2017-01-01 to 2017-12-31 · Vehicle unit records
10 persons with unknown or unrecorded age excluded from age chart.
Sex Distribution (93 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2017-01-01 to 2017-12-31 · 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: 2017-01-01 through 2017-12-31
- Report generated: September 10, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2017-01-01 through 2017-12-31 (365 days)
- Geographic scope: iowa, IA
- Total crash records analyzed: 102
- Total persons involved: 156
- Total vehicles involved: 134
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: 2017." Published September 10, 2026. Reporting period: 2017-01-01 to 2017-12-31. Data source: Iowa Crash Data, ArcGIS Open Data. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/iowa/statewide/2017-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: 2017-01-01 – 2017-12-31
Generated: September 10, 2026 · All rights reserved