ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · CHELMSFORD, MA · 2022
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/chelmsford/2022-annual-report
Yearly Traffic Safety Analysis
693 CRASHES IN
CHELMSFORD, MA
2022
In 2022, Chelmsford recorded 693 total vehicle crashes, a 21.8% increase from the 569 crashes reported in 2021. The most significant year-over-year change was in crash severity, with total fatalities rising from 1 in 2021 to 7 in 2022. This corresponded with an increase in fatal crashes from 1 to 6.
693
▲ 21.8%was 569
Total Crash Events
7
▲ 600.0%was 1
Persons Killed
231
▲ 1.8%was 227
Persons Injured
28
▲ 115.4%was 13
Hit-and-Run Crashes
Note: "Persons Killed" (7) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (6) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities. 3 crashes with unreported severity are not shown in the severity breakdown.
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Crash trends in Chelmsford showed a notable increase from 2021 to 2022. Total collisions rose by 21.8%, from 569 to 693. While total injuries remained relatively stable with a 1.8% increase from 227 to 231, the number of fatalities increased from 1 to 7 in the same period.
28
Hit-and-Run Crashes — 2022
▲ 115.4% vs prior (13)
Hit-and-run incidents increased substantially between the two periods. The number of hit-and-run crashes more than doubled, rising from 13 in 2021 to 28 in 2022, an increase of 115.4%. Consequently, the hit-and-run rate, representing the percentage of total crashes that were hit-and-runs, trended upward from 2.3% in 2021 to 4.0% in 2022.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
0
Pedestrians Killed
0
Cyclists Killed
7
Motorists Killed
0
Other Killed
2
Pedestrians Injured
4
Cyclists Injured
224
Motorists Injured
1
Other Injured
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31 · 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 years. While Friday remained the peak day for crashes in both 2021 (129 crashes) and 2022 (114 crashes), the peak hour shifted. In 2022, the highest number of crashes occurred at 3 p.m. with 79 incidents, compared to the 4 p.m. peak in 2021 which saw 59 incidents.
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
Crash severity increased significantly in 2022 compared to the prior year. The number of fatal crashes rose from 1 to 6, increasing their share of total crashes from 0.2% to 0.9%. The count of serious injury crashes also more than doubled, from 6 to 13. Despite the rise in severe outcomes, the overall proportion of crashes resulting in any injury decreased from 30.6% in 2021 to 26.3% in 2022, as property-damage-only crashes increased from 395 to 511.
Severity is per crash event (most severe injury). 6 fatal crash events resulted in 7 persons killed.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution (Crash Events)
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
The leading contributing factors for crashes shifted between 2021 and 2022. 'Followed too closely' became the top factor in 2022, with the count of related crashes increasing by 37.3% from 102 to 140. 'No improper driving' moved to the second position, with its count rising from 112 to 128. Notably, crashes attributed to 'Failure to keep in proper lane or running off road' increased by 65% in count, from 40 to 66 incidents, while crashes from 'Failed to yield right of way' decreased in count from 66 to 50.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
The distribution of environmental conditions remained largely consistent year-over-year. In both 2021 and 2022, the vast majority of crashes occurred in daylight (68.9% and 69.4% of total crashes, respectively) and on dry road surfaces (79.4% and 80.0%, respectively). Crashes during adverse road conditions like wet, ice, or snow accounted for a similar proportion of total incidents, making up 20.4% in 2021 and 19.9% in 2022.
Weather
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
The top three vehicle makes involved in crashes remained unchanged between 2021 and 2022: Toyota, Honda, and Ford, with the count for each make increasing. Analysis of persons involved shows that the 26-34 and 35-44 age groups were the most represented in both periods. The count of individuals in the 26-34 age group involved in crashes grew from 222 to 260, and for the 35-44 group, it grew from 194 to 255.
Top Vehicle Makes (1,314 vehicles)
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31 · Vehicle unit records
109 persons with unknown or unrecorded age excluded from age chart.
Sex Distribution (1,481 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31 · Person-level records linked to crash events
Speed Limit Zones
There was a notable shift in crashes toward higher speed zones in 2022. Crashes in 65 mph zones increased from 144 to 183, and collisions in 55 mph zones more than doubled from 62 to 136. A significant change was observed in fatal crash locations; while the sole fatal crash in 2021 occurred in a 35 mph zone, all 6 fatal crashes in 2022 were recorded in 65 mph zones.
Fatal crashes by zone: 65 mph: 6 of 183 (3.279%)
Source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly Open Data · 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31 · 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: 2022-01-01 through 2022-12-31
- Report generated: June 21, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2022-01-01 through 2022-12-31 (365 days)
- Geographic scope: CHELMSFORD, MA
- Total crash records analyzed: 693
- Total persons involved: 1,653
- Total vehicles involved: 1,314
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). "CHELMSFORD, MA Crash Intelligence Report: 2022." Published June 21, 2026. Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2022-12-31. Data source: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV), Arcgis_yearly Open Data. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/massachusetts/chelmsford/2022-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: Massachusetts Crash Data (MassDOT CDV) · Arcgis_yearly
Period: 2022-01-01 – 2022-12-31
Generated: June 21, 2026 · All rights reserved