ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · AUSTIN, TX · OCTOBER 2020
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/texas/austin/october-2020-report
Monthly Traffic Safety Analysis
1,179 CRASHES IN
AUSTIN, TX
OCTOBER 2020
In October 2020, Austin recorded 1,179 vehicle crashes, a 21.5% decrease from the 1,501 crashes reported in October 2019. Despite the overall reduction in collisions, the number of fatalities increased significantly during this period. There were 11 fatalities in October 2020, compared to 6 in the same month of the previous year, marking an 83.3% rise.
1,179
▼ -21.5%was 1,501
Total Crash Events
11
▲ 83.3%was 6
Persons Killed
764
▼ -17.2%was 923
Persons Injured
11
▲ 57.1%was 7
Fatal Crash Events
Note: "Persons Killed" (11) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (11) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities.
Source: Austin Crash Reports · Socrata Open Data · 2020-10-01 to 2020-10-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
The overall trend for October 2020 shows a notable decrease in traffic incidents compared to the previous year. Total crashes declined by 21.5%, from 1,501 to 1,179, and total injuries fell by 17.2%, from 923 to 764. In contrast to this downward trend, traffic fatalities rose from 6 in October 2019 to 11 in October 2020.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
4
Pedestrians Killed
1
Cyclists Killed
4
Motorists Killed
0
Pedestrians Injured
0
Cyclists Injured
0
Motorists Injured
Source: Austin Crash Reports · Socrata Open Data · 2020-10-01 to 2020-10-31 · 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 October 2019 and October 2020. The peak day for crashes moved from Thursday (282 incidents) in 2019 to Friday (221 incidents) in 2020. While the 5 p.m. hour remained the peak time for collisions in both periods, the number of crashes during this hour decreased from 139 to 96. The daily crash distribution in 2020 showed a stronger concentration on Friday and Saturday compared to the prior year's midweek peak.
Source: Austin Crash Reports · Socrata Open Data · 2020-10-01 to 2020-10-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Austin Crash Reports · Socrata Open Data · 2020-10-01 to 2020-10-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
While total crashes decreased, the severity of crashes that did occur increased from October 2019 to October 2020. The proportion of fatal crashes rose from 0.5% to 0.9% of all incidents. Similarly, crashes resulting in a serious injury increased from 2.5% to 3.4% of the total. Conversely, the share of crashes with no reported injuries decreased from 49.8% in 2019 to 46.4% in 2020.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Austin Crash Reports · Socrata Open Data · 2020-10-01 to 2020-10-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution (Crash Events)
Source: Austin Crash Reports · Socrata Open Data · 2020-10-01 to 2020-10-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Speed Limit Zones
In both October 2019 and October 2020, the highest number of crashes occurred in zones with a 45 mph speed limit. While the total number of crashes decreased across most speed zones year-over-year, the locations of fatal crashes shifted. In October 2020, all 7 fatal crashes with a recorded speed limit happened in zones of 45 mph or higher, with 5 of those occurring in zones of 50 mph or more. This contrasts with October 2019, where 2 of the 5 fatal crashes with a recorded speed limit occurred in zones of 40 mph or less.
Fatal crashes by zone: 45 mph: 1 of 173 (0.578%) · 50 mph: 2 of 55 (3.636%) · 55 mph: 1 of 90 (1.111%) · 65 mph: 1 of 60 (1.667%) · 70 mph: 2 of 49 (4.082%)
Source: Austin Crash Reports · Socrata Open Data · 2020-10-01 to 2020-10-31 · Posted speed limit at crash location
Data Sources & Methodology
Primary Data Source
All crash data in this report is sourced from Austin Crash Reports (https://data.austintexas.gov/d/y2wy-tgr5), 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)
- Dataset URL: https://data.austintexas.gov/d/y2wy-tgr5
- Data format: Structured JSON via REST API
- Record types queried: Crash events, person records, and vehicle unit records
- Date filter applied: 2020-10-01 through 2020-10-31
- Report generated: July 6, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2020-10-01 through 2020-10-31 (31 days)
- Geographic scope: Austin, TX
- Total crash records analyzed: 1,179
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). "Austin, TX Crash Intelligence Report: October 2020." Published July 6, 2026. Reporting period: 2020-10-01 to 2020-10-31. Data source: Austin Crash Reports, Socrata Open Data. Dataset: https://data.austintexas.gov/d/y2wy-tgr5. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/texas/austin/october-2020-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: Austin Crash Reports · Socrata
Period: 2020-10-01 – 2020-10-31
Generated: July 6, 2026 · All rights reserved