Somerville Motor Vehicle Crashes Since 2018

City of Somerville provides data on motor vehicle crashes occurring on public ways from May 2018 onward. Reports are generated for incidents involving a fatality, injury, or property damage exceeding $1,000. The dataset is refreshed daily with a one-month reporting delay.

Use Cases

• Analyze temporal patterns in crash occurrence and severity based on report timestamps.
• Identify high-incidence locations for traffic safety interventions using geographic data.
• Study correlations between reported property damage amounts and other incident factors.

Strengths

• Continuous temporal coverage from May 2018 to the present.
• Data is refreshed daily, ensuring regular updates.
• Includes a clear, legally-defined reporting threshold for incidents involving fatalities, injuries, or >$1,000 in damage.

Limitations

• Excludes crashes under active investigation and all incidents on state roads, limiting completeness.
• Sample data and column definitions are unavailable, hindering initial assessment of data structure.
• Data appears with a consistent one-month reporting delay, not in real-time.

Provenance

Source

City of Somerville

Collection Method

Police crash reports completed for incidents on public ways meeting specific criteria.

Time Range

May 2018 to present

Freshness

Refreshed daily with a one-month reporting delay.

Geography

Public ways within Somerville, Massachusetts, excluding state roads.