ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · IOWA, IA · 2021
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/iowa/statewide/2021-annual-report
Yearly Traffic Safety Analysis
730 CRASHES IN
IOWA, IA
2021
In 2021, Marshall County recorded 730 total crashes, a 16.4% increase from the 627 crashes documented in 2020. This period saw a notable rise in traffic fatalities, which increased from 3 in the prior year to 8 in the current year. Concurrently, the total number of injuries rose from 203 to 242.
730
▲ 16.4%was 627
Total Crash Events
8
▲ 166.7%was 3
Persons Killed
242
▲ 19.2%was 203
Persons Injured
8
▲ 166.7%was 3
Fatal Crash Events
Note: "Persons Killed" (8) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (8) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities.
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Crash trends in Marshall County showed an increase year-over-year, with total collisions rising by 16.4% from 627 in 2020 to 730 in 2021. This upward trend was also reflected in crash outcomes, as total injuries increased by 19.2% and fatalities more than doubled, rising from 3 to 8.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
0
Pedestrians Killed
0
Cyclists Killed
8
Motorists Killed
0
Other Killed
5
Pedestrians Injured
3
Cyclists Injured
233
Motorists Injured
1
Other Injured
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Mode classified from person records (driver/passenger → motorist; pedestrian; bicyclist → cyclist; in-line skater / unspecified → other)
When Crashes Happen
While Friday remained the peak day for crashes in both 2020 (113 incidents) and 2021 (136 incidents), the peak hour shifted two hours earlier. In 2021, the 3 p.m. hour saw the most crashes with 76, compared to the 5 p.m. peak of 51 crashes in 2020. Crash volume in December 2021 (102) was substantially higher than in December 2020 (55).
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
The severity of crashes increased from 2020 to 2021, with fatal crashes rising from 3 to 8 and the corresponding fatal crash rate increasing from 0.48% to 1.1%. While the count of serious injury crashes decreased from 19 to 15, crashes resulting in minor or possible injuries increased in total from 156 to 177. The proportion of non-injury crashes remained stable at 72.6% in 2021, compared to 71.6% in 2020.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution (Crash Events)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
Collisions involving an animal remained the leading contributing factor, increasing from 110 incidents in 2020 to 120 in 2021. 'Lost Control' became the second most frequent factor, with incidents rising by 47.8% from 46 to 68. In contrast, 'Failure to yield from a stop sign' incidents decreased from 57 to 53. Other factors with notable increases in count include 'Followed too close' (from 25 to 43) and 'Driving too fast for conditions' (from 21 to 36).
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
Most crashes in both periods occurred during daylight hours on dry roads. In 2021, crashes in daylight increased in both absolute count (from 330 to 408) and as a share of all crashes (from 52.6% to 55.9%). The proportion of crashes occurring on adverse road surfaces such as ice, snow, or wet pavement remained consistent, accounting for 17.8% of incidents in 2021 compared to 18.7% in 2020.
Weather
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
Ford and Chevrolet remained the top two vehicle makes involved in crashes, with both seeing an increase in total incidents from 2020 to 2021; Fords increased from 160 to 175, and Chevrolets rose from 209 to 239. An analysis of persons involved in crashes shows a demographic shift, with the 65+ age group's involvement increasing from 137 individuals (9.5% of total) in 2020 to 174 (11.7% of total) in 2021.
Top Vehicle Makes (1,177 vehicles)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Vehicle unit records
209 persons with unknown or unrecorded age excluded from age chart.
Sex Distribution (921 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS Open Data · 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31 · Person-level records linked to crash events
Data Sources & Methodology
Primary Data Source
All crash data in this report is sourced from Iowa Crash Data, accessed programmatically via the ArcGIS 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: ArcGIS 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: 2021-01-01 through 2021-12-31
- Report generated: September 9, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2021-01-01 through 2021-12-31 (365 days)
- Geographic scope: iowa, IA
- Total crash records analyzed: 730
- Total persons involved: 1,486
- Total vehicles involved: 1,177
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). "iowa, IA Crash Intelligence Report: 2021." Published September 9, 2026. Reporting period: 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31. Data source: Iowa Crash Data, ArcGIS Open Data. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/iowa/statewide/2021-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: Iowa Crash Data · ArcGIS
Period: 2021-01-01 – 2021-12-31
Generated: September 9, 2026 · All rights reserved