ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · NEW YORK, NY · DECEMBER 2023
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/december-2023-report
Monthly Traffic Safety Analysis
7,994 CRASHES IN
NEW YORK, NY
DECEMBER 2023
In December 2023, New York City recorded 7,994 motor vehicle crashes, a 4.8% decrease from the 8,393 crashes reported in December 2022. Despite the overall drop in collisions, the number of people injured increased by 5.4%, rising from 4,277 to 4,507. The most significant year-over-year change was a 30.1% increase in crashes involving bicycles, which grew from 272 to 354.
7,994
▼ -4.8%was 8,393
Total Crash Events
23
▼ -17.9%was 28
Persons Killed
4,507
▲ 5.4%was 4,277
Persons Injured
23
▼ -17.9%was 28
Fatal Crash Events
Note: "Persons Killed" (23) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (23) 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 · 2023-12-01 to 2023-12-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Overall, traffic collisions in New York City showed a downward trend in December 2023 compared to the same month in 2022, with total crashes decreasing by 4.8% from 8,393 to 7,994. Fatalities also declined by 17.9%, from 28 to 23. However, the number of injuries reported rose by 5.4%, indicating that while fewer crashes occurred, they resulted in more injuries year-over-year.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
9
Pedestrians Killed
3
Cyclists Killed
10
Motorists Killed
1
Other Killed
889
Pedestrians Injured
356
Cyclists Injured
3,121
Motorists Injured
141
Other Injured
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2023-12-01 to 2023-12-31 · Mode classified from person records (driver/passenger → motorist; pedestrian; bicyclist → cyclist; in-line skater / unspecified → other)
When Crashes Happen
The temporal patterns of crashes remained consistent between December 2022 and December 2023. Friday continued to be the peak day for collisions in both periods, with 1,501 crashes in 2023 and 1,586 in 2022. The peak hour for crashes also held steady at 5 p.m., accounting for 554 incidents in December 2023 and 607 in the prior year.
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2023-12-01 to 2023-12-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2023-12-01 to 2023-12-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
The proportion of crashes resulting in an injury increased year-over-year. In December 2023, 41.5% of crashes involved an injury (3,314 incidents), up from 38.5% in December 2022 (3,229 incidents). Conversely, the share of crashes with no injuries decreased from 61.2% to 58.3%. The number of fatal crashes decreased from 28 to 23, though their share of all crashes remained constant at 0.3% in both periods.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2023-12-01 to 2023-12-31 · 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 · 2023-12-01 to 2023-12-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
The leading contributing factors for crashes remained largely the same, though their counts and rankings shifted. In December 2023, 'Unspecified' became the most cited factor with 2,004 crashes, a slight increase from 1,974 in the prior year. 'Driver Inattention/Distraction', the top factor in 2022 with 2,151 crashes, saw its count decrease by 7.7% to 1,986 crashes, making it the second-leading factor. Other top factors like 'Failure to Yield Right-of-Way' and 'Following Too Closely' also saw their crash counts decrease by 9.5% and 4.7%, respectively.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2023-12-01 to 2023-12-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Vehicles & Demographics
The makes of vehicles most frequently involved in crashes remained consistent year-over-year, with Toyota, Honda, Ford, and Nissan comprising the top four in both periods. While Toyota- and Honda-made vehicles saw a decrease in crash involvement, Ford vehicles moved from the fourth to the third most common make, despite a nearly unchanged count (1,088 vs. 1,093). The age distribution of persons involved in crashes was also stable, with the 26-34 age group being the largest cohort in both December 2023 (5,132 people) and December 2022 (5,424 people).
Top Vehicle Makes (15,982 vehicles)
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2023-12-01 to 2023-12-31 · Vehicle unit records
4,910 persons with unknown or unrecorded age excluded from age chart.
Sex Distribution (23,813 persons with recorded sex)
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2023-12-01 to 2023-12-31 · 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: 2023-12-01 through 2023-12-31
- Report generated: June 16, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2023-12-01 through 2023-12-31 (31 days)
- Geographic scope: New York, NY
- Total crash records analyzed: 7,994
- Total persons involved: 27,506
- Total vehicles involved: 15,982
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: December 2023." Published June 16, 2026. Reporting period: 2023-12-01 to 2023-12-31. Data source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions, Socrata Open Data. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/new-york/new-york/december-2023-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: 2023-12-01 – 2023-12-31
Generated: June 16, 2026 · All rights reserved