Labs Experiment 004

Street Safety

Arlington averages 1.1 crashes a day. Although most are fender benders, it’s a drastically different story for people walking and biking.

Where it happens

Each dot is a police-reported crash in the last five years. Darker and larger means someone was hurt worse. Tap a dot for details.

Police-reported crashes each year, by the worst injury in the crash.

Data: every crash Arlington police and State Police reported to the state since 2015, from MassDOT’s open crash data, the same records behind its IMPACT crash portal.
Everything but the yearly chart covers the last five years, October 6, 2021 through October 5, 2026, and counts each crash once. “Walking and biking” means a person on foot or on a bike was in the crash. A “car crash” is one with only vehicles in it, no one walking, biking or on a scooter.
The real number is higher. Crashes nobody reports to police, like a cyclist who falls avoiding a car door and goes home, aren’t here.
“Seriously hurt” is the responding officer’s judgment of a suspected serious injury, not a medical diagnosis. A crash counts by the worst injury of anyone in it.
Recent years can still change as late reports arrive. About 3 percent of crashes have no map location and count in the totals only.
Updated monthly from MassDOT’s data.