Motor-vehicle deaths in the United States have decreased greatly since the 1970s and 1980s. In 2022, there were around 13.8 deaths from motor vehicles per 100,000 population, compared to a rate of 26.8 deaths per 100,000 in 1970. Laws requiring drivers and passengers to wear safety belts and advancements in safety technology in vehicles are major drivers for these reductions.

Motor-vehicle accidents in the U.S.

Americans spend a significant amount of time behind the wheel. Many cities lack convenient and reliable public transportation and especially in rural areas, cars are a necessary means of transportation. In 2020, August was the month with the highest number of fatal crashes, followed by September and June. The deadliest time of day for fatal vehicle crashes is between 6 and 9 p.m., most likely due to the after-work rush hour and more people who are under the influence of alcohol.

Drinking and driving among youth

Drinking and driving remains a relevant problem across the United States and can be especially problematic among younger inexperienced drivers. As of 2017, around 5.5 percent of high school students reported they had driven while under the influence of alcohol. Drinking and driving is more common among males than females and Hispanic males reported drinking and driving more than other races or ethnicities.

The graph displays the number of car accident fatalities by type in the United States from 2010 to 2022. The x-axis represents the years, labeled from '10 to '22, while the y-axis indicates the number of fatalities. Each year includes data points for four categories: Passenger Vehicle, Pedestrian, Two-Wheeled Vehicle, and Large Truck fatalities. Passenger Vehicle fatalities range from a low of 21,076 in 2014 to a high of 26,650 in 2021. Pedestrian fatalities increase from 4,300 in 2010 to a peak of 7,467 in 2022. Two-Wheeled Vehicle fatalities vary between 5,022 in 2014 and 7,287 in 2022. Large Truck fatalities are the lowest among the categories, ranging from 346 in 2010 to 533 in 2022. The data reveals an overall upward trend in fatalities across all categories, particularly notable in the years 2021 and 2022.

About 228,200 Americans had a license to operate a motor vehicle in the United States in 2020. That year, an estimated 36,680 people died on U.S. roads. Traffic-related fatalities per 100,000 licensed drivers stood at 17.01 in 2020.

Road safety rankings
The United States has among the highest rates of road fatalities per population worldwide. Possible contributing factors to deaths on the road can include speeding, not wearing a seatbelt, driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and driving while fatigued. Traffic fatalities caused by speeding in the United States have declined since 2008, with less than 10,000 deaths recorded annually over recent years.

Automation for the nation
94 percent of severe automobile crashes are due to human error — but driving safety is taken much more seriously today than in the past, with roughly 90 percent of U.S. drivers wearing their seatbelts while driving in 2020. Over recent years, car manufacturers and developers have striven to reduce car crashes even further with partially and fully automated safety features such as forward collision warnings, lane departure warnings, rearview video systems, and automatic emergency braking. Self-driving vehicles are also set to take to the roads in the future, with car brands such as Toyota, Ford, and GM registering over 350 autonomous driving patents respectively in the United States.

The number of unintentional-injury-related deaths due to poisoning in the United States was almost 103,500 in 2022. This statistic shows the number of unintentional-injury-related deaths by principal type in the United States in the year 2021 and 2022.

In 2022, the state of California reported almost 4,100 motor-vehicle deaths, a slight decrease from the year before. Death from motor-vehicles remains a relevant problem across the United States.

Motor-vehicle deaths in the United States

In the United States, a person’s lifetime odds of dying in a motor vehicle accident is around 1 in 93. Death rates from motor vehicles have decreased in recent years and are significantly lower than the rates recorded in the 1970s and 1980s. This is due to a mass improvement in car safety standards and features. For example, all states, with the exception of New Hampshire, have laws against not wearing safety belts.

Drinking and driving

One of the biggest causes of motor-vehicle deaths is driving while under the influence of alcohol. The state with the highest number of fatalities due to alcohol-impaired driving in 2020 was Texas, followed by California and Florida. Passenger cars are the vehicle type most often involved in fatal crashes caused by alcohol-impaired drivers, with around 4,726 such accidents in the United States in 2020.

The data shows the year-wise statistics for incidence of accidental deaths in different cities of India by natural or unnatural causes between 2009 and 2015.

Note: 1. Vasai Virar, Tiruchirappalli, Thrissur, Thiruvananthapuram, Ranchi, Srinagar, Raipur, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kota, Kollam, Kannur, Jodhpur, Gwalior, Ghaziabad, Durg Bhilainagar, Aurangabad and Chandigarh (City) newly emerged Mega Cities as per Population Census 2011. 2. Poisoning includes the incidence due to food poisoning/accidental intake of insects, spurious/poisoning liquor, leakage of poisoning gases etc., snake bite/animal bite and others. 3. Traffic accidents includes Road accidents, Rail road accidents and other railway accidents. 4. Collapse of structure includes House, Building, Dam, Bridge others. 5. Sudden deaths include i) Heart Attacks ii) Epileptic fits/giddiness iii) Abortion/Childbirth iv) Influence of alcohol. 6. Fire includes i) Fireworks/crackers ii) Short-Circuit iii) Cooking Gas Cylinder/Stove burst iv) other fire accidents.

In 2023, the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents amounted to approximately 11,628 cases in Vietnam. This indicated a decrease from the previous year. From 2013 to 2021, the number of traffic deaths has gradually declined, then increased dramatically in 2022, with the number of deaths due to crashes double than that in 2021.

This dataset describes injury mortality in the United States beginning in 1999. Two concepts are included in the circumstances of an injury death: intent of injury and mechanism of injury. Intent of injury describes whether the injury was inflicted purposefully (intentional injury) and, if purposeful, whether the injury was self-inflicted (suicide or self-harm) or inflicted by another person (homicide). Injuries that were not purposefully inflicted are considered unintentional (accidental) injuries. Mechanism of injury describes the source of the energy transfer that resulted in physical or physiological harm to the body. Examples of mechanisms of injury include falls, motor vehicle traffic crashes, burns, poisonings, and drownings (1,2). Data are based on information from all resident death certificates filed in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Age-adjusted death rates (per 100,000 standard population) are based on the 2000 U.S. standard population. Populations used for computing death rates for 2011–2015 are postcensal estimates based on the 2010 census, estimated as of July 1, 2010. Rates for census years are based on populations enumerated in the corresponding censuses. Rates for non-census years before 2010 are revised using updated intercensal population estimates and may differ from rates previously published. Causes of injury death are classified by the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD–10). Categories of injury intent and injury mechanism generally follow the categories in the external-cause-of-injury mortality matrix (1,2). Cause-of-death statistics are based on the underlying cause of death. SOURCES CDC/NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, mortality data (see http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/deaths.htm); and CDC WONDER (see http://wonder.cdc.gov). REFERENCES National Center for Health Statistics. ICD–10: External cause of injury mortality matrix. National Center for Health Statistics. Vital statistics data available. Mortality multiple cause files. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/vitalstatsonline.htm. Murphy SL, Xu JQ, Kochanek KD, Curtin SC, and Arias E. Deaths: Final data for 2015. National vital statistics reports; vol 66. no. 6. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2017. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_06.pdf. Miniño AM, Anderson RN, Fingerhut LA, Boudreault MA, Warner M. Deaths: Injuries, 2002. National vital statistics reports; vol 54 no 10. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2006.

Mortality from accidents (ICD-10 V01-X59 equivalent to ICD-9 E800-E928 excluding E870-E879). To reduce deaths from accidents. Legacy unique identifier: P00048

The graph illustrates the number of fatal truck accidents in the United States from 2021 to 2025. The x-axis represents the years, ranging from 2021 to 2025, while the y-axis shows the number of fatal truck accidents. In 2022, the number of fatal accidents was the highest, reaching 5,797. Last year, in 2024, it was the lowest. The year 2025 has just begun, so it is too early to make predictions. This information is presented in a bar graph format, effectively highlighting the annual changes and trends in fatal truck accident occurrences in the United States.

Mortality from accidents (ICD-10 V01-X59 equivalent to ICD-9 E800-E928 excluding E870-E879). To reduce deaths from accidents. Legacy unique identifier: P00063

Mortality from accidental falls (ICD-10 W00-W19 equivalent to ICD-9 E880-888 excluding E887). To reduce deaths from accidental falls. Legacy unique identifier: P00085

Brazil Highways Statistics: Traffic Accidents: Killed in Motorcycle Accident data was reported at 604.000 Unit in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 663.000 Unit for 2016. Brazil Highways Statistics: Traffic Accidents: Killed in Motorcycle Accident data is updated yearly, averaging 548.500 Unit from Dec 2008 (Median) to 2017, with 10 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 663.000 Unit in 2016 and a record low of 341.000 Unit in 2008. Brazil Highways Statistics: Traffic Accidents: Killed in Motorcycle Accident data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Brazilian Association of Highway Concessionaires. The data is categorized under Brazil Premium Database’s Automobile Sector – Table BR.RAW008: Highways Statistics: Traffic Accidents. The Brazilian Association of Highway Concessionaires-ABCR represents the highway concession sector.

The traffic accident and casualties statistics tabulated in this dataset are compiled and retrieved from the Transport Information System developed and enhanced by the Road Safety and Standards Division. The accidents included are those personal injury accidents reported to the Police and do not include damage-only accidents.

This dataset contains counts of deaths for California as a whole based on information entered on death certificates. Final counts are derived from static data and include out-of-state deaths to California residents, whereas provisional counts are derived from incomplete and dynamic data. Provisional counts are based on the records available when the data was retrieved and may not represent all deaths that occurred during the time period. Deaths involving injuries from external or environmental forces, such as accidents, homicide and suicide, often require additional investigation that tends to delay certification of the cause and manner of death. This can result in significant under-reporting of these deaths in provisional data.

The final data tables include both deaths that occurred in California regardless of the place of residence (by occurrence) and deaths to California residents (by residence), whereas the provisional data table only includes deaths that occurred in California regardless of the place of residence (by occurrence). The data are reported as totals, as well as stratified by age, gender, race-ethnicity, and death place type. Deaths due to all causes (ALL) and selected underlying cause of death categories are provided. See temporal coverage for more information on which combinations are available for which years.

The cause of death categories are based solely on the underlying cause of death as coded by the International Classification of Diseases. The underlying cause of death is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as "the disease or injury which initiated the train of events leading directly to death, or the circumstances of the accident or violence which produced the fatal injury." It is a single value assigned to each death based on the details as entered on the death certificate. When more than one cause is listed, the order in which they are listed can affect which cause is coded as the underlying cause. This means that similar events could be coded with different underlying causes of death depending on variations in how they were entered. Consequently, while underlying cause of death provides a convenient comparison between cause of death categories, it may not capture the full impact of each cause of death as it does not always take into account all conditions contributing to the death.

The average for 2019 based on 12 countries was 19.05 deaths per 100,000 people. The highest value was in Venezuela: 39 deaths per 100,000 people and the lowest value was in Peru: 13.6 deaths per 100,000 people. The indicator is available from 2000 to 2019. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Legacy unique identifier: P00085

The number of traffic accident fatalities showed a decreasing trend in Finland over the period from 2013 to 2023. In 2023, 173 road casualties were reported in Finland. 2023 was the lowest figure with 173 casualties during the shown period.

Mortality from land transport accidents (ICD-10 V01-V89 equivalent to ICD-9 E800-E829). This indicator replaces the motor vehicle traffic accidents (MVTAs) indicator (ICD-9 E810-E819) which does not have equivalent ICD-10 codes. To reduce deaths from land transport accidents. Legacy unique identifier: P00698

The statistics on road traffic accidents with personal injury (persons injured or killed) records all accidents occurring on roads with public traffic in Austria. The accident data is recorded electronically by the police authorities and an extract relevant for the statistic is transmitted daily to Statistics Austria by the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The objective is to continuously monitor accidents on Austrian roads in order to provide reliable data for research and accident prevention.

The results are published quarterly (preliminary data) and annually (final data).