ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · BATON ROUGE, LA · FEBRUARY 2026
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/louisiana/baton-rouge/february-2026-report
Monthly Traffic Safety Analysis
1,186 CRASHES IN
BATON ROUGE, LA
FEBRUARY 2026
In February 2026, Baton Rouge recorded 1,186 traffic crashes, a figure nearly identical to the 1,184 crashes reported in February 2025. While the overall crash volume remained stable with less than a 0.2% change, the number of hit-and-run incidents increased by 12.1% year-over-year. In a positive trend, fatalities decreased from 3 to 2, and total injuries also saw a slight decline from 940 to 925.
1,186
▲ 0.2%was 1,184
Total Crash Events
2
▼ -33.3%was 3
Fatal Crashes
925
▼ -1.6%was 940
Injury Crashes
278
▲ 12.1%was 248
Hit-and-Run Crashes
Note: "Fatal Crashes" and "Injury Crashes" count crash events — this source publishes crash-level counts only, not individual persons.
Source: Baton Rouge Crash Data · Socrata Open Data · 2026-02-01 to 2026-02-28 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
The overall number of traffic crashes in Baton Rouge remained stable, with a marginal increase of just two incidents from 1,184 in February 2025 to 1,186 in February 2026. This represents a year-over-year change of less than 0.2%. However, both fatalities and injuries saw a modest decline during the same period, with fatalities dropping from 3 to 2 and injuries decreasing by 1.6% from 940 to 925.
278
Hit-and-Run Crashes — February 2026
▲ 12.1% vs prior (248)
Hit-and-run incidents increased both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of total crashes. The count of hit-and-run crashes rose from 248 in February 2025 to 278 in February 2026, marking a 12.1% increase. The hit-and-run rate also climbed, with 23.4% of all crashes in the current period being classified as hit-and-run, up from 20.9% in the prior year.
When Crashes Happen
Temporal analysis reveals a shift in the weekly crash pattern between the two periods. In February 2026, Friday was the day with the most crashes, recording 241 incidents. This contrasts with February 2025, when Thursday was the peak day with 207 crashes. While both periods saw Wednesdays and Thursdays as high-volume days, the concentration of crashes shifted towards the end of the work week in the current period.
Source: Baton Rouge Crash Data · Socrata Open Data · 2026-02-01 to 2026-02-28 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Crash Severity Breakdown
The severity of crashes showed a slight downward trend year-over-year. The number of fatal crashes decreased from 3 in February 2025 to 2 in February 2026, with the corresponding fatal crash rate dropping from 0.25% to 0.17%. Similarly, the proportion of crashes resulting in injury fell from 79.4% to 78.0%, while the share of crashes with no reported injuries increased from 20.4% to 21.8%.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Baton Rouge Crash Data · Socrata Open Data · 2026-02-01 to 2026-02-28 · Severity derived from reported fatal/injury indicators (no KABCO A/B/C codes)
Severity Distribution (Crash Events)
Source: Baton Rouge Crash Data · Socrata Open Data · 2026-02-01 to 2026-02-28 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
"Violations" remained the top contributing factor in both periods, with the count of associated crashes increasing by 1.7% from 946 to 962. The second-ranked factor, "Movement prior to crash," saw its count decrease by 6.9% from 204 to 190. Crashes attributed to "Driver condition" increased by 38.5% year-over-year, although the absolute numbers were small, rising from 13 to 18 incidents. The overall ranking of the top three contributing factors did not change between February 2025 and February 2026.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Baton Rouge Crash Data · Socrata Open Data · 2026-02-01 to 2026-02-28 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
Crashes in February 2026 occurred under significantly better environmental conditions compared to the previous year. The proportion of crashes on dry roads rose from 88.1% to 96.0%, while crashes in clear weather increased from 80.6% to 92.0% of the total. Conversely, incidents during rain dropped from 79 to 23, and crashes on wet surfaces fell from 121 to 34, indicating a substantial year-over-year shift away from crashes occurring in adverse weather.
Weather
Source: Baton Rouge Crash Data · Socrata Open Data · 2026-02-01 to 2026-02-28 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Baton Rouge Crash Data · Socrata Open Data · 2026-02-01 to 2026-02-28 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Baton Rouge Crash Data · Socrata Open Data · 2026-02-01 to 2026-02-28 · Road surface condition field
Data Sources & Methodology
Primary Data Source
All crash data in this report is sourced from Baton Rouge Crash Data, accessed programmatically via the Socrata 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: Socrata 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: 2026-02-01 through 2026-02-28
- Report generated: June 19, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2026-02-01 through 2026-02-28 (28 days)
- Geographic scope: Baton Rouge, LA
- Total crash records analyzed: 1,186
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). "Baton Rouge, LA Crash Intelligence Report: February 2026." Published June 19, 2026. Reporting period: 2026-02-01 to 2026-02-28. Data source: Baton Rouge Crash Data, Socrata Open Data. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/louisiana/baton-rouge/february-2026-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: Baton Rouge Crash Data · Socrata
Period: 2026-02-01 – 2026-02-28
Generated: June 19, 2026 · All rights reserved