Yearly Traffic Safety Analysis

3,012 CRASHES IN
IOWA, IA
2025

All metrics benchmarked against2024

In Scott County, a total of 3,012 vehicle crashes were recorded in 2025, a 2.9% decrease from the 3,101 crashes documented in 2024. The most significant year-over-year change was a 52.2% reduction in traffic-related fatalities, which fell from 23 in the prior period to 11 in the current period. The total number of injuries remained stable, with a slight increase from 1,036 to 1,044.

3,012

▼ -2.9%was 3,101

Total Crash Events

▼ -52.2%was 23

Persons Killed

1,044

▲ 0.8%was 1,036

Persons Injured

▼ -54.5%was 22

Fatal Crash Events

Note: "Persons Killed" (11) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (10) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities.

Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records

Trend Summary

Overall traffic crashes in Scott County showed a modest downward trend, decreasing by 89 incidents from 3,101 in 2024 to 3,012 in 2025. While total injuries remained nearly unchanged, fatalities saw a substantial decline of 52.2%, dropping from 23 to 11. This indicates a decrease in crash frequency and a significant reduction in the severity of the most serious outcomes.

Vulnerable Road User Casualties

Pedestrians Killed

Prior: 4↓-75.0%

Cyclists Killed

Prior: 0→0.0%

Motorists Killed

Prior: 19↓-47.4%

Other Killed

Prior: 0→0.0%

Pedestrians Injured

Prior: 27↓-3.7%

Cyclists Injured

Prior: 19↑78.9%

980

Motorists Injured

Prior: 989↓-0.9%

Other Injured

Prior: 1↑300.0%

Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Mode classified from person records (driver/passenger → motorist; pedestrian; bicyclist → cyclist; in-line skater / unspecified → other)

When Crashes Happen

The temporal patterns of crashes showed some shifts between the two periods. While Friday remained the peak day for crashes in both 2024 (496 crashes) and 2025 (525 crashes), the peak hour for incidents shifted. In 2024, the 3 p.m. hour saw the most crashes with 297, whereas in 2025, the peak moved later to the 5 p.m. hour with 265 crashes.

Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday

Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)

Crash Severity Breakdown

Crash severity decreased notably from the prior year. The number of fatal crashes was more than halved, falling from 22 in 2024 to 10 in 2025, with the fatal crash rate dropping from 0.7% to 0.3% of all crashes. Crashes resulting in serious injuries also declined from 53 to 39. Conversely, crashes involving minor injuries saw a slight increase from 319 to 324.

Severity is per crash event (most severe injury). 10 fatal crash events resulted in 11 persons killed.

Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)

Fatal10fatal crashes0.3%

↓-54.5%prior 22

Serious Injury39serious injury crashes1.3%

↓-26.4%prior 53

Minor Injury324minor injury crashes10.8%

↑1.6%prior 319

Possible Injury578possible injury crashes19.2%

↓-3.7%prior 600

No Injury2,061no injury crashes68.4%

↓-2.2%prior 2,107

Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · KABCO injury classification scale

Severity Distribution (Crash Events)

Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Most severe injury per crash record

Top Contributing Factors

The leading contributing factors remained consistent year-over-year, with "Followed too close" being the primary cause in both 2024 (334 crashes) and 2025 (364 crashes). The count for this factor increased by 9.0%. The second and third-ranked factors, "Ran off road - left" and "FTYROW: Making left turn," also held their positions and saw their incident counts increase. In contrast, crashes attributed to "Driving too fast for conditions" decreased by 16.8%, from 125 incidents to 104.

Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause

Followed too close364 (12.1%)↑9.0%prior 334

Ran off road - left304 (10.1%)↑8.2%prior 281

FTYROW: Making left turn198 (6.6%)↑4.8%prior 189

Animal186 (6.2%)↓-0.5%prior 187

Ran Traffic Signal176 (5.8%)↓-5.4%prior 186

FTYROW: From stop sign154 (5.1%)↑6.9%prior 144

Other (explain in narrative): Other114 (3.8%)↓-2.6%prior 117

Operating vehicle in an reckless, erratic, careless, negligent manner113 (3.8%)↑31.4%prior 86

Lost Control110 (3.7%)↓-14.7%prior 129

Driving too fast for conditions104 (3.5%)↓-16.8%prior 125

Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash

Road & Environmental Conditions

The vast majority of crashes in both years occurred during daylight hours, in clear weather, and on dry road surfaces, with the proportions remaining stable year-over-year. In 2025, crashes during daylight represented 63.2% of the total, compared to 64.7% in 2024. There was a slight increase in the count of crashes occurring on snowy surfaces, which rose from 88 in 2024 to 135 in 2025.

Weather

Clear2,068 (73.3%)

↓-5.1%prior 2,179

Cloudy450 (15.9%)

↑0.7%prior 447

Rain122 (4.3%)

↓-10.9%prior 137

Snow110 (3.9%)

↑22.2%prior 90

Freezing rain/drizzle29 (1.0%)

↓-14.7%prior 34

Fog, smoke, smog16 (0.6%)

↓-30.4%prior 23

Blowing Snow14 (0.5%)

↑27.3%prior 11

Severe Winds12 (0.4%)

Other (explain in narrative)2 (0.1%)

Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Weather condition at time of crash

Lighting

Daylight1,905 (67.5%)

↓-5.0%prior 2,006

Dark - roadway lighted617 (21.9%)

↑1.3%prior 609

Dark - roadway not lighted173 (6.1%)

↓-14.4%prior 202

Dusk68 (2.4%)

↑15.3%prior 59

Dawn49 (1.7%)

↑14.0%prior 43

Dark - unknown roadway lighting10 (0.4%)

↓-50.0%prior 20

Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Lighting condition field

Road Surface

Dry2,294 (81.3%)

↓-4.1%prior 2,391

Wet282 (10.0%)

↓-9.0%prior 310

Snow135 (4.8%)

↑53.4%prior 88

Ice/frost74 (2.6%)

↓-25.3%prior 99

Slush17 (0.6%)

↓-5.6%prior 18

Gravel15 (0.5%)

↓-16.7%prior 18

Other (explain in narrative)3 (0.1%)

Sand1 (0.0%)

Mud, dirt1 (0.0%)

Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Road surface condition field

Vehicles & Demographics

The top vehicle makes involved in crashes, primarily Ford and Chevrolet, maintained their rankings and similar volumes in both periods. An analysis of the age of persons involved in crashes shows a largely consistent distribution year-over-year. However, the number of individuals in the 16-20 age group involved in crashes increased from 672 in 2024 to 742 in 2025, while most other age brackets saw slight decreases or remained stable.

Top Vehicle Makes (5,518 vehicles)

FORD929 (16.8%)

↓-0.7%prior 936

CHEV523 (9.5%)

↑8.3%prior 483

CHEVROLET361 (6.5%)

↓-17.0%prior 435

TOYT301 (5.5%)

↑2.4%prior 294

HOND272 (4.9%)

↑9.7%prior 248

NR219 (4%)

↓-11.7%prior 248

KIA219 (4%)

↑9.0%prior 201

TOYOTA204 (3.7%)

↑5.2%prior 194

JEEP203 (3.7%)

↓-8.1%prior 221

GMC181 (3.3%)

↓-16.6%prior 217

Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Vehicle unit records

818 persons with unknown or unrecorded age excluded from age chart.

Sex Distribution (3,604 persons with recorded sex)

Male2,010 (55.8%)

↓-0.3%prior 2,016

Female1,594 (44.2%)

↑4.2%prior 1,530

Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · 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: 2025-01-01 through 2025-12-31
Report generated: September 9, 2026

Data Coverage

Reporting period: 2025-01-01 through 2025-12-31 (365 days)
Geographic scope: iowa, IA
Total crash records analyzed: 3,012
Total persons involved: 5,774
Total vehicles involved: 5,518

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: 2025." Published September 9, 2026. Reporting period: 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31. Data source: Iowa Crash Data, ArcGIS Open Data. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/iowa/statewide/2025-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

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3,012 CRASHES INIOWA, IA2025