Norfolk Traffic Crash Reports with Severity and Contributing Factors

Quarterly updated records of reportable traffic crashes within the City of Norfolk. The dataset includes details on crash severity, injuries, fatalities, contributing factors like speeding or alcohol, and involvement of pedestrians or bicycles. Data is owned by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles and provided via the Virginia Department of Transportation.

Use Cases

• Predict Crash Severity from features like Weather Condition, Roadway Alignment, and Speeding using classification models.
• Analyze spatial patterns of crashes by joining on Ward and Location of First Harmful Event for geospatial hotspot mapping.
• Model the relationship between Intersection Type, Traffic Control Type, and the Number of Vehicles Involved in a crash.
• Assess risk factors for pedestrian and bicycle safety by analyzing Pedestrian Involved and Bicycle Involved columns against Driver actions.
• Forecast temporal trends in crash frequency and injury counts using the Datetime field for time-series analysis.

Strengths

• Contains over 30 specific columns detailing crash circumstances, injuries, and contributing factors.
• Data is updated quarterly, with a last recorded update in March 2026.
• Includes geospatial coordinates (Longitude) for location-based analysis.

Limitations

• Total row count and historical time range of the data are unknown, limiting assessment of scope.
• Potential geographic bias as data is limited to the physical jurisdiction of the City of Norfolk.
• Class distribution for categorical variables like Crash Severity is unspecified, risking model imbalance.

Provenance

Source

Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), provided by Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT).

Collection Method

Reportable crash data collected through official traffic crash reports.

Freshness

Updated quarterly.

Geography

City of Norfolk, Virginia, USA.