ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · NEW YORK, NY · JANUARY 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/january-2026-report
Monthly Traffic Safety Analysis
6,773 CRASHES IN
NEW YORK, NY
JANUARY 2026
In January 2026, there were 6,773 total motor vehicle collisions, an increase of 4.5% from the 6,482 collisions recorded in January 2025. While total fatalities increased by one from 16 to 17, a notable year-over-year shift was observed in contributing factors, with the count of crashes attributed to 'Pavement Slippery' increasing by 84.2%.
6,773
▲ 4.5%was 6,482
Total Crash Events
17
▲ 6.3%was 16
Persons Killed
3,569
▲ 0.4%was 3,556
Persons Injured
16
Fatal Crash Events
Note: "Persons Killed" (17) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (16) 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 · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Year-over-year data indicates an upward trend in traffic collisions, with total crashes rising by 291 from 6,482 to 6,773. Total injuries saw a slight increase of 0.4% from 3,556 to 3,569. The number of fatalities also rose, from 16 in the prior period to 17 in the current period.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
7
Pedestrians Killed
2
Cyclists Killed
6
Motorists Killed
2
Other Killed
817
Pedestrians Injured
209
Cyclists Injured
2,460
Motorists Injured
83
Other Injured
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · 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 both consistency and change year-over-year. Friday remained the day with the highest number of crashes in both January 2025 (1,206 crashes) and January 2026 (1,256 crashes). However, the peak hour for collisions shifted two hours earlier, moving from the 5 p.m. hour in the prior year (411 crashes) to the 3 p.m. hour in the current year (424 crashes).
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
The distribution of crash severity shifted slightly between the two periods. The number of fatal crashes remained unchanged at 16, while the fatal crash rate per 100 crashes decreased marginally from 0.25 to 0.24. The proportion of crashes resulting in an injury decreased from 40.7% of all crashes in the prior period to 39.1% in the current period. Correspondingly, the share of crashes with no reported injuries increased from 59.0% to 60.7%.
Severity is per crash event (most severe injury). 16 fatal crash events resulted in 17 persons killed.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · 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 · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
The leading contributing factors remained consistent, with 'Unspecified' and 'Driver Inattention/Distraction' ranking first and second in both periods. However, the count of crashes attributed to 'Driver Inattention/Distraction' decreased by 4.1%, from 1,572 to 1,508. A significant change was a large increase in the count of crashes attributed to 'Pavement Slippery', which rose by 84.2% from 120 incidents in January 2025 to 221 in January 2026. The count of crashes involving 'Failure to Yield Right-of-Way' also decreased, falling 9.4% from 459 to 416.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Vehicles & Demographics
The most common vehicle makes involved in collisions were consistent year-over-year, with Toyota, Honda, and Ford vehicles ranking as the top three in both January 2025 and January 2026. Regarding the demographics of persons involved, the 35-44 age group saw its count increase from 4,095 to 4,327. This made it the most frequently represented age bracket in the current period, surpassing the 26-34 age group, which was the largest in the prior year.
Top Vehicle Makes (13,186 vehicles)
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Vehicle unit records
3,768 persons with unknown or unrecorded age excluded from age chart.
Sex Distribution (19,569 persons with recorded sex)
Source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · 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: 2026-01-01 through 2026-01-31
- Report generated: September 8, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2026-01-01 through 2026-01-31 (31 days)
- Geographic scope: New York, NY
- Total crash records analyzed: 6,773
- Total persons involved: 22,542
- Total vehicles involved: 13,186
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). "New York, NY Crash Intelligence Report: January 2026." Published September 8, 2026. Reporting period: 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31. Data source: NYC Motor Vehicle Collisions, Socrata Open Data. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/new-york/new-york/january-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: 2026-01-01 – 2026-01-31
Generated: September 8, 2026 · All rights reserved