ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · IOWA, IA · DECEMBER 2016
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/december-2016-report
Monthly Traffic Safety Analysis
6,060 CRASHES IN
IOWA, IA
DECEMBER 2016
In December 2016, Iowa recorded 6,060 traffic crashes, a 13.2% increase from the 5,352 crashes reported in December 2015. This rise was accompanied by a 54.2% increase in fatalities, from 24 to 37. The most notable year-over-year shift was a significant surge in crashes attributed to 'Driving too fast for conditions,' which increased in count by 86.9% and became the leading contributing factor.
6,060
▲ 13.2%was 5,352
Total Crash Events
37
▲ 54.2%was 24
Persons Killed
1,681
▲ 7.1%was 1,570
Persons Injured
28
▲ 27.3%was 22
Fatal Crash Events
Note: "Persons Killed" (37) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (28) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities.
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2016-12-01 to 2016-12-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Traffic collisions in Iowa showed a clear upward trend in December 2016 compared to the same month in the prior year. Total crashes rose by 13.2%, from 5,352 to 6,060. This increase extended to crash severity, with total fatalities climbing 54.2% from 24 to 37, and total injuries increasing by 7.1% from 1,570 to 1,681.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
2
Pedestrians Killed
0
Cyclists Killed
35
Motorists Killed
0
Other Killed
34
Pedestrians Injured
5
Cyclists Injured
1,639
Motorists Injured
3
Other Injured
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2016-12-01 to 2016-12-31 · 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. The peak day for collisions moved from Thursday (1,061 crashes) in December 2015 to Friday (1,233 crashes) in December 2016. While the peak hour for crashes remained the 5 p.m. slot in both years, the number of crashes on Fridays and Saturdays increased substantially in 2016, with Friday incidents alone rising by 78.9% from 689 to 1,233.
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2016-12-01 to 2016-12-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2016-12-01 to 2016-12-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
Crash severity worsened in December 2016 compared to the previous year. The number of fatal crashes increased from 22 to 28, and the total number of fatalities rose from 24 to 37. The proportion of crashes resulting in any level of injury (possible, minor, or serious) remained stable at approximately 23% for both periods. However, the absolute count of injury-related crashes grew from 1,259 in 2015 to 1,397 in 2016.
Severity is per crash event (most severe injury). 28 fatal crash events resulted in 37 persons killed.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2016-12-01 to 2016-12-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution (Crash Events)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2016-12-01 to 2016-12-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
The leading contributing factors for crashes changed notably year-over-year. 'Driving too fast for conditions' surged from the third-ranked cause to the top position, with its count increasing by 86.9% from 475 to 888 incidents. Conversely, crashes involving an 'Animal,' the top factor in 2015, saw their count decrease by 22.4% from 800 to 621. 'Ran off road - left' also saw a substantial 64.7% increase in count, rising from 343 to 565 incidents.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2016-12-01 to 2016-12-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
Adverse road and weather conditions were more prevalent in crashes during December 2016 compared to December 2015. The number of crashes occurring on roads with snow, ice, or slush more than doubled, increasing from 1,194 to 2,361. Similarly, crashes reported during snowy weather rose from 658 to 1,047. The proportion of crashes occurring in daylight increased from 47.9% to 54.2%, while the share of crashes in dark conditions decreased.
Weather
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2016-12-01 to 2016-12-31 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2016-12-01 to 2016-12-31 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2016-12-01 to 2016-12-31 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
Top Vehicle Makes (10,285 vehicles)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2016-12-01 to 2016-12-31 · Vehicle unit records
1,159 persons with unknown or unrecorded age excluded from age chart.
Sex Distribution (7,757 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2016-12-01 to 2016-12-31 · 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: 2016-12-01 through 2016-12-31
- Report generated: September 9, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2016-12-01 through 2016-12-31 (31 days)
- Geographic scope: iowa, IA
- Total crash records analyzed: 6,060
- Total persons involved: 10,745
- Total vehicles involved: 10,285
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: December 2016." Published September 9, 2026. Reporting period: 2016-12-01 to 2016-12-31. Data source: Iowa Crash Data, ArcGIS Open Data. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/iowa/statewide/december-2016-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: 2016-12-01 – 2016-12-31
Generated: September 9, 2026 · All rights reserved