ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · IOWA, IA · 2018
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/2018-annual-report
Yearly Traffic Safety Analysis
549 CRASHES IN
IOWA, IA
2018
In 2018, Wapello County recorded 549 vehicle crashes, a 3.4% increase from the 531 crashes reported in 2017. While total fatalities remained unchanged at 4, the number of injuries rose by 10.7% to 218. One of the most significant year-over-year changes was a 43.3% decrease in crashes involving driving under the influence (DUI), which fell from 30 incidents in 2017 to 17 in 2018.
549
▲ 3.4%was 531
Total Crash Events
4
Persons Killed
218
▲ 10.7%was 197
Persons Injured
4
▲ 33.3%was 3
Fatal Crash Events
Note: "Persons Killed" (4) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (4) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities.
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Overall, traffic crashes in Wapello County saw a slight increase between 2017 and 2018. The total number of crashes rose by 3.4%, from 531 to 549. This increase was accompanied by a 10.7% rise in total injuries, from 197 to 218, while fatalities held steady at 4 for both years.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
0
Pedestrians Killed
0
Cyclists Killed
4
Motorists Killed
0
Other Killed
6
Pedestrians Injured
4
Cyclists Injured
207
Motorists Injured
1
Other Injured
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31 · 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 2017 and 2018. While Wednesday remained the peak day for crashes in both years with 89 incidents, the peak hour moved two hours later, from 3 p.m. in 2017 (41 crashes) to 5 p.m. in 2018 (46 crashes). A notable change occurred in the daily distribution, with crashes on Mondays and Tuesdays increasing from 67 and 64 respectively to 84 for both days, while Sunday crashes decreased from 76 to 62.
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
The severity of crashes slightly worsened from 2017 to 2018. The number of fatal crashes increased from 3 to 4, raising the fatal crash rate from 0.56% to 0.73%. The proportion of crashes resulting in any level of injury (Serious, Minor, or Possible) also increased, accounting for 33.0% of all incidents in 2018 compared to 31.3% in the prior year. Consequently, the share of crashes with no injuries decreased from 68.2% to 66.3%.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution (Crash Events)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
The leading contributing factors for crashes in Wapello County remained consistent year-over-year, with 'Animal' being the most cited cause in both 2018 (98 incidents) and 2017 (96 incidents). 'Lost Control' was the second-most common factor in both periods, though its count decreased from 44 to 40. A significant shift was observed in crashes attributed to 'Driving too fast for conditions,' which increased by 74% from 19 incidents in 2017 to 33 in 2018. Conversely, incidents involving 'Ran Traffic Signal' decreased from 18 to 8.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
In 2018, a larger proportion of crashes occurred during daylight hours, accounting for 60.3% of all incidents compared to 55.2% in 2017. Conversely, the share of crashes in dark conditions decreased from 26.6% to 21.7%. Regarding road surface conditions, there was a notable increase in crashes on non-dry surfaces. Crashes on wet roads rose from 34 to 53, and incidents on snow-covered roads more than doubled from 14 to 30.
Weather
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
The makes of vehicles involved in crashes remained broadly similar, with Chevrolet and Ford being the most common in both 2017 and 2018. When analyzing the age distribution of all persons involved in crashes, there was a notable increase in the 35-44 age group, which grew from 126 individuals in 2017 to 164 in 2018. The 26-34 age group also saw an increase from 150 to 175 persons. Conversely, the number of persons aged 65 and older involved in crashes decreased from 128 to 110.
Top Vehicle Makes (882 vehicles)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31 · Vehicle unit records
103 persons with unknown or unrecorded age excluded from age chart.
Sex Distribution (675 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31 · 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: 2018-01-01 through 2018-12-31
- Report generated: September 9, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2018-01-01 through 2018-12-31 (365 days)
- Geographic scope: iowa, IA
- Total crash records analyzed: 549
- Total persons involved: 1,090
- Total vehicles involved: 882
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: 2018." Published September 9, 2026. Reporting period: 2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31. Data source: Iowa Crash Data, ArcGIS Open Data. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/iowa/statewide/2018-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: 2018-01-01 – 2018-12-31
Generated: September 9, 2026 · All rights reserved