ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · BOSTON, MA · MARCH 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/massachusetts/boston/march-2026-report
Monthly Traffic Safety Analysis
467 CRASHES IN
BOSTON, MA
MARCH 2026
In March 2026, Boston experienced 467 crashes, an 8.6% increase compared to the 430 crashes recorded in March 2025. The most significant year-over-year shift was the increase in total fatalities from 0 in March 2025 to 2 in March 2026. Total injuries decreased from 224 to 193 during the same period.
467
▲ 8.6%was 430
Total Crash Events
2
Persons Killed
193
▼ -13.8%was 224
Persons Injured
88
▲ 8.6%was 81
Hit-and-Run Crashes
Note: "Persons Killed" (2) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (2) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities. 18 crashes with unreported severity are not shown in the severity breakdown.
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2026-03-01 to 2026-03-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Overall, crashes in Boston increased year-over-year, with total crashes rising by 8.6% from 430 in March 2025 to 467 in March 2026. This indicates an upward trend in crash incidents for the month. Fatalities also increased from 0 to 2, while total injuries decreased from 224 to 193.
88
Hit-and-Run Crashes — March 2026
▲ 8.6% vs prior (81)
Hit-and-run crashes increased from 81 in March 2025 to 88 in March 2026. Despite this increase in count, the hit-and-run rate remained stable at 18.8% for both periods. This indicates that while the absolute number of hit-and-run incidents rose, their proportion relative to total crashes did not change.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
1
Pedestrians Killed
0
Cyclists Killed
1
Motorists Killed
0
Other Killed
14
Pedestrians Injured
6
Cyclists Injured
172
Motorists Injured
1
Other Injured
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2026-03-01 to 2026-03-31 · 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 year-over-year, with the peak crash day moving from Saturday (74 crashes) in March 2025 to Tuesday (83 crashes) in March 2026. Similarly, the peak crash hour changed from 2 p.m. (30 crashes) in the prior period to 7 p.m. (33 crashes) in the current period. This suggests a shift in when and on what days crashes are most concentrated.
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2026-03-01 to 2026-03-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2026-03-01 to 2026-03-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
Fatalities increased from 0 in March 2025 to 2 in March 2026, resulting in a fatal crash rate of 0.43% for the current period, up from 0%. While minor injury crashes remained stable at 83 for both periods, their share decreased from 19.3% to 17.8% of total crashes. Serious injury crashes increased from 4 (0.9% share) to 8 (1.7% share), and possible injury crashes rose from 35 (8.1% share) to 45 (9.6% share).
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2026-03-01 to 2026-03-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution (Crash Events)
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2026-03-01 to 2026-03-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
Several contributing factors saw notable changes in crash counts year-over-year. Crashes attributed to 'Inattention' significantly increased from 4 to 20, while 'Made an improper turn' rose from 5 to 15. Conversely, 'No improper driving' decreased from 85 to 64 crashes, and 'Disregarded traffic signs, signals, road markings' dropped from 19 to 14 crashes. The top factor 'No improper driving' remained among the highest but its count decreased.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2026-03-01 to 2026-03-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
Regarding road conditions, the count of crashes on dry surfaces decreased from 297 to 281, while crashes on wet surfaces remained stable at 51 in March 2025 and 52 in March 2026. Notably, crashes on icy and snowy surfaces, which were not reported in March 2025, each accounted for 5 incidents in March 2026. Daylight conditions saw a slight decrease in crashes from 234 to 232, and dark-lighted roadway crashes also slightly decreased from 128 to 125.
Weather
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2026-03-01 to 2026-03-31 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2026-03-01 to 2026-03-31 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2026-03-01 to 2026-03-31 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
The total number of vehicles involved in crashes increased from 831 in March 2025 to 919 in March 2026. Toyota and Honda remained the top two vehicle makes involved, with Toyota increasing from 161 to 194 and Honda from 121 to 146. The age groups 26-34 and 35-44 saw the largest increases in person involvement, rising by 34 and 46 respectively. The 21-25 age group, however, saw a decrease in person involvement from 119 to 104.
Top Vehicle Makes (919 vehicles)
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2026-03-01 to 2026-03-31 · Vehicle unit records
178 persons with unknown or unrecorded age excluded from age chart.
Sex Distribution (932 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2026-03-01 to 2026-03-31 · Person-level records linked to crash events
Speed Limit Zones
Crashes occurring in 25 mph speed zones decreased from 159 in March 2025 to 123 in March 2026, but this zone recorded 2 fatal crashes in the current period compared to 0 in the prior period. Crashes in 35 mph zones increased from 27 to 39, and in 45 mph zones from 26 to 39. The 55 mph speed zones also saw an increase in crashes, rising from 34 to 52 year-over-year.
Fatal crashes by zone: 25 mph: 2 of 123 (1.626%)
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2026-03-01 to 2026-03-31 · Posted speed limit at crash location
Data Sources & Methodology
Primary Data Source
All crash data in this report is sourced from Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV), accessed programmatically via the Arcgis_yearly 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_yearly 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: 2026-03-01 through 2026-03-31
- Report generated: June 21, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2026-03-01 through 2026-03-31 (31 days)
- Geographic scope: BOSTON, MA
- Total crash records analyzed: 467
- Total persons involved: 1,112
- Total vehicles involved: 919
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). "BOSTON, MA Crash Intelligence Report: March 2026." Published June 21, 2026. Reporting period: 2026-03-01 to 2026-03-31. Data source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV), Arcgis_yearly Open Data. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/massachusetts/boston/march-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: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly
Period: 2026-03-01 – 2026-03-31
Generated: June 21, 2026 · All rights reserved