ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · NEW YORK, NY · APRIL 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/new-york/new-york/april-2026-report
Monthly Traffic Safety Analysis
6,643 CRASHES IN
NEW YORK, NY
APRIL 2026
In April 2026, New York recorded 6,643 motor vehicle crashes, a 4.1% decrease from the 6,924 crashes reported in April 2025. This downward trend was also reflected in fatalities, which fell from 18 to 15 over the same period. While total injuries remained nearly stable with a slight increase of 0.3% (from 3,934 to 3,945), the overall number of crashes declined.
6,643
▼ -4.1%was 6,924
Total Crash Events
15
▼ -16.7%was 18
Persons Killed
3,945
▲ 0.3%was 3,934
Persons Injured
15
▼ -16.7%was 18
Fatal Crash Events
Note: "Persons Killed" (15) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (15) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities.
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-04-01 to 2026-04-30 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Crash data for April 2026 indicates a downward trend compared to the same month in the prior year. Total reported crashes fell by 4.1%, from 6,924 to 6,643. Similarly, the number of fatalities decreased by 16.7% from 18 to 15, while total injuries saw a marginal increase of 0.3%.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
8
Pedestrians Killed
1
Cyclists Killed
6
Motorists Killed
0
Other Killed
642
Pedestrians Injured
448
Cyclists Injured
2,735
Motorists Injured
120
Other Injured
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-04-01 to 2026-04-30 · 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 year-over-year. In April 2026, the peak day for crashes was Thursday with 1,181 incidents, a change from the prior year's peak on Wednesday which saw 1,189 incidents. The busiest hour also shifted slightly later, moving from the 4 p.m. hour in 2025 (475 crashes) to the 5 p.m. hour in 2026 (423 crashes).
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-04-01 to 2026-04-30 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-04-01 to 2026-04-30 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
Comparing April 2026 to April 2025, the number of fatal crashes decreased from 18 to 15. The proportion of crashes resulting in a fatality also slightly decreased, from 0.3% to 0.2% of all incidents. However, the share of crashes involving an injury increased, rising from 41.9% (2,900 injury crashes) in the prior year to 43.9% (2,919 injury crashes) in the current period.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-04-01 to 2026-04-30 · Severity derived from reported fatal/injury indicators (no KABCO A/B/C codes)
Severity Distribution (Crash Events)
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-04-01 to 2026-04-30 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
The leading contributing factors remained consistent, though their counts and rankings shifted between periods. In April 2026, 'Unspecified' was the top factor with 1,793 incidents, while 'Driver Inattention/Distraction' was second with 1,632. This is a reversal from April 2025, where 'Driver Inattention/Distraction' led with 1,721 incidents. The count of crashes attributed to 'Following Too Closely' decreased by 19.4% (from 403 to 325), and those from 'Failure to Yield Right-of-Way' dropped by 14.6% (from 485 to 414).
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-04-01 to 2026-04-30 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Vehicles & Demographics
The ranking of the top five vehicle makes involved in crashes remained unchanged year-over-year, with Toyota, Honda, Ford, Nissan, and Chevrolet leading in both periods. The number of vehicles from these top makes involved in crashes generally decreased, consistent with the overall drop in total incidents. An analysis of persons involved shows that the 35-44 age group was the most represented in both April 2025 (4,498 persons) and April 2026 (4,412 persons), with counts remaining relatively stable.
Top Vehicle Makes (13,220 vehicles)
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-04-01 to 2026-04-30 · Vehicle unit records
3,498 persons with unknown or unrecorded age excluded from age chart.
Sex Distribution (19,937 persons with recorded sex)
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-04-01 to 2026-04-30 · Person-level records linked to crash events
Data Sources & Methodology
Primary Data Source
All crash data in this report is sourced from NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions, 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: 2026-04-01 through 2026-04-30
- Report generated: September 8, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2026-04-01 through 2026-04-30 (30 days)
- Geographic scope: New York, NY
- Total crash records analyzed: 6,643
- Total persons involved: 22,663
- Total vehicles involved: 13,220
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). "New York, NY Crash Intelligence Report: April 2026." Published September 8, 2026. Reporting period: 2026-04-01 to 2026-04-30. Data source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions, Socrata Open Data. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/new-york/new-york/april-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: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata
Period: 2026-04-01 – 2026-04-30
Generated: September 8, 2026 · All rights reserved