ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · COLUMBUS, OH · 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/ohio/columbus/2023-annual-report
Yearly Traffic Safety Analysis
16,316 CRASHES IN
COLUMBUS, OH
2023
Total crashes in Columbus increased by 9.10% year-over-year, rising from 14955 in the prior period to 16316 in the current period. The most notable shift was an 81.6% increase in bicycle crashes, which rose from 87 to 158. This indicates a significant rise in overall crash incidents and a particular concern for bicycle safety.
16,316
▲ 9.1%was 14,955
Total Crash Events
100
▲ 3.1%was 97
Persons Killed
7,936
▲ 2.9%was 7,714
Persons Injured
6,980
▲ 39.2%was 5,016
Hit-and-Run Crashes
Note: "Persons Killed" (100) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (91) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities.
Source: Ohio Crash Data (ODOT TIMS) · Csv Open Data · 2023-01-01 to 2023-12-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Overall, crash data indicates an upward trend in Columbus, with total crashes increasing by 9.10% year-over-year. Fatalities also saw a slight increase of 3.1%, rising from 97 to 100. Similarly, total injuries increased by 2.9%, from 7714 to 7936, suggesting a general worsening of road safety metrics.
6,980
Hit-and-Run Crashes — 2023
▲ 39.2% vs prior (5,016)
Hit-and-run crashes increased significantly by 39.16% year-over-year, rising from 5016 in the prior period to 6980 in the current period. The hit-and-run crash rate also saw a notable increase of 9.3 percentage points, from 33.5% to 42.8% of all crashes. This indicates a clear and concerning upward trend in hit-and-run incidents.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
27
Pedestrians Killed
73
Motorists Killed
440
Pedestrians Injured
7,496
Motorists Injured
Source: Ohio Crash Data (ODOT TIMS) · Csv Open Data · 2023-01-01 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 for crashes remained largely consistent year-over-year, with Friday continuing to be the peak day for incidents in both periods. The peak hour for crashes also remained stable at 5 PM. This consistency suggests that daily and hourly traffic flow patterns or related factors have not significantly shifted.
Source: Ohio Crash Data (ODOT TIMS) · Csv Open Data · 2023-01-01 to 2023-12-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Ohio Crash Data (ODOT TIMS) · Csv Open Data · 2023-01-01 to 2023-12-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
Fatal crashes decreased slightly from 92 in the prior period to 91 in the current period, maintaining a fatal crash rate of 0.6% of total crashes in both years. Serious injury crashes (A) increased in count from 365 to 383, though their proportion of total crashes slightly decreased from 2.4% to 2.3%. Overall, injury crashes (A, B, C) accounted for 35.85% of crashes in the prior period and 33.56% in the current period, indicating a slight decrease in their overall proportion.
Severity is per crash event (most severe injury). 91 fatal crash events resulted in 100 persons killed.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Ohio Crash Data (ODOT TIMS) · Csv Open Data · 2023-01-01 to 2023-12-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution (Crash Events)
Source: Ohio Crash Data (ODOT TIMS) · Csv Open Data · 2023-01-01 to 2023-12-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Road & Environmental Conditions
Crashes occurring in clear weather increased from 9777 to 10840, while those in rainy conditions rose from 1587 to 1956. Conversely, crashes during snowy conditions significantly decreased by over 50%, from 399 to 198. On road surfaces, dry road crashes increased from 11664 to 12948, and wet road crashes increased from 2445 to 2865, reflecting a general increase in crashes across various conditions.
Weather
Source: Ohio Crash Data (ODOT TIMS) · Csv Open Data · 2023-01-01 to 2023-12-31 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Ohio Crash Data (ODOT TIMS) · Csv Open Data · 2023-01-01 to 2023-12-31 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Ohio Crash Data (ODOT TIMS) · Csv Open Data · 2023-01-01 to 2023-12-31 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
The total number of vehicles involved in crashes increased by 9.4%, from 29913 to 32724. Notably, "Unknown or Hit/Skip" vehicle types saw a substantial increase of 74.8%, rising from 778 to 1360. Passenger cars and SUVs remained the most common vehicle types involved, with increases of 6.3% and 7.8% respectively. Regarding person demographics, the 21-25 age group saw an increase from 4392 to 4459 persons, while the 26-34 age group also rose from 6656 to 6685 persons.
Top Vehicle Makes (32,724 vehicles)
Source: Ohio Crash Data (ODOT TIMS) · Csv Open Data · 2023-01-01 to 2023-12-31 · Vehicle unit records
6,932 persons with unknown or unrecorded age excluded from age chart.
Sex Distribution (35,498 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Ohio Crash Data (ODOT TIMS) · Csv Open Data · 2023-01-01 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 Ohio Crash Data (ODOT TIMS), accessed programmatically via the Csv 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: Csv 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: 2023-01-01 through 2023-12-31
- Report generated: July 5, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2023-01-01 through 2023-12-31 (365 days)
- Geographic scope: Columbus, OH
- Total crash records analyzed: 16,316
- Total persons involved: 40,202
- Total vehicles involved: 32,724
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). "Columbus, OH Crash Intelligence Report: 2023." Published July 5, 2026. Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2023-12-31. Data source: Ohio Crash Data (ODOT TIMS), Csv Open Data. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/ohio/columbus/2023-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: Ohio Crash Data (ODOT TIMS) · Csv
Period: 2023-01-01 – 2023-12-31
Generated: July 5, 2026 · All rights reserved