NHTSA Crash Data Scraper — Fatal Car Accidents & Traffic Fatality Data

Extract fatal motor vehicle crash data from the NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database. Search by state, county, year range, or vehicle make to get detailed crash statistics including fatality counts, crash locations, weather conditions, road types, and involved vehicles. This actor wraps the free NHTSA CrashAPI to deliver structured JSON data on every fatal traffic crash recorded in the United States since 2010.

Disclaimer: This actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) or the U.S. Department of Transportation. Data is sourced from the publicly available FARS CrashAPI.

What NHTSA crash data can you extract?

This actor connects to the NHTSA FARS CrashAPI to extract detailed records from every fatal motor vehicle crash investigated by NHTSA. Each record may include:

• Crash identifiers — case year, state case number, FARS case ID for cross-referencing
• Fatality counts — number of fatalities per crash, persons involved, vehicles involved
• Location data — state, county, city, latitude, longitude, route type, road name
• Crash conditions — weather, light conditions, road surface, road alignment, speed limit
• Time and date — crash date, time, day of week, month, year, hour
• Vehicle details — make, model, model year, body type, vehicle identification number (VIN)
• Contributing factors — manner of collision, drunk driving indicators, speeding flags
• Person data — age, sex, injury severity, seating position, restraint use, alcohol/drug involvement

How to search fatal car accidents by state

Use the stateCode parameter with FIPS codes to filter crashes by state. Common codes: 6=California, 12=Florida, 17=Illinois, 36=New York, 48=Texas. Add a countyCode to narrow results to a specific county (e.g., 11=Miami-Dade in Florida). Set a year range with fromYear and toYear to control the time window.

How to search crash statistics by vehicle make

Set the vehicleMake field to a manufacturer name like TESLA, FORD, TOYOTA, HONDA, or CHEVROLET. The actor will use the GetCrashesByVehicle endpoint to find all fatal crashes involving that make. Optionally set vehicleModelYear to filter to a specific model year.

Traffic fatality data output example

Each crash record in the output dataset contains fields like:

{
    "CaseYear": 2023,
    "ST_CASE": 120456,
    "STATE": 12,
    "StateName": "Florida",
    "COUNTY": 11,
    "CountyName": "Miami-Dade",
    "CITY": 1250,
    "FATALS": 1,
    "PERSONS": 3,
    "VE_TOTAL": 2,
    "LATITUDE": 25.7617,
    "LONGITUD": -80.1918,
    "WEATHER": "Clear",
    "LGT_COND": "Daylight",
    "ROUTE": "State Highway",
    "DRUNK_DR": 0,
    "DAY": 15,
    "MONTH": 6,
    "HOUR": 14,
    "MINUTE": 30,
    "source": "NHTSA FARS (Fatality Analysis Reporting System)",
    "sourceUrl": "https://crashviewer.nhtsa.dot.gov/CrashAPI",
    "caseDetailUrl": "https://crashviewer.nhtsa.dot.gov/CrashAPI/crashes/GetCaseDetails?caseYear=2023&stateCase=120456&format=json"
}

How much does it cost to scrape NHTSA crash data?

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing. You pay per crash record returned.

• $0.00005 per actor start (Apify default)
• Per-result charge based on the number of crash records extracted
• No proxy costs — NHTSA CrashAPI is a free government API, no proxy required

A typical search for one state and one year returns 500-3,000 fatal crash records. Use the maxResults parameter to control output volume and manage your budget.

Tip: Start with the default 50 results to preview data before requesting full datasets.

Who uses NHTSA fatal crash statistics?

• Personal injury attorneys — research crash patterns by location, identify dangerous intersections, support case investigations with official FARS data
• Insurance companies — analyze crash frequency by region, assess risk profiles, price policies based on geographic fatality rates
• Fleet operators — evaluate route safety, compare crash rates across operating regions, support driver safety programs
• Academic researchers — study traffic safety trends, analyze the impact of policy changes on fatality rates, publish peer-reviewed papers
• Journalists — investigate traffic safety stories, compare fatality trends across states, build interactive crash maps
• Urban planners — identify high-risk corridors, support Vision Zero initiatives, justify infrastructure investments
• Automotive companies — analyze crashes involving specific vehicle makes, support safety engineering efforts

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
stateCode	integer	FIPS state code (e.g., 12=Florida, 48=Texas, 6=California). Default: 12
countyCode	integer	Optional FIPS county code within the state (e.g., 11=Miami-Dade)
fromYear	integer	Start year for crash data (2010+). Default: 2023
toYear	integer	End year for crash data. Default: 2023
vehicleMake	string	Optional vehicle make filter (e.g., TESLA, FORD, TOYOTA)
vehicleModelYear	integer	Optional vehicle model year filter. Used with vehicleMake.
maxResults	integer	Maximum crash records to return (1-5000, default 50)

Integrations

Export your data as JSON, CSV, or Excel. Schedule runs to check for newly published FARS data. Use webhooks to trigger downstream workflows when new crash data becomes available.

This actor works as an MCP server — AI agents can discover and use it to access NHTSA crash data programmatically.