Motor-vehicle deaths in the United States have decreased greatly since the 1970s and 1980s. In 2023, there were around **** deaths from motor vehicles per 100,000 population, compared to a rate of **** 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 * and * 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 people. In 2023, around *** percent of those aged 21 to 25 years in the United States reported driving under the influence of alcohol in the preceding year. Furthermore, around ***** percent of those aged 16 to 20 drove after drinking within the past year.

The graph illustrates the number of car accidents in the United States from 2013 to 2023. The x-axis represents the years, abbreviated from '13 to '23, while the y-axis displays the annual number of crashes. Over this 11-year period, the number of accidents ranges from a low of 5,251,006 in 2020 to a high of 6,821,129 in 2016. Other notable figures include 6,756,084 crashes in 2019 and 5,686,891 in 2013. The data exhibits significant fluctuations, with a peak in 2016, a sharp decline in 2020, and subsequent variations in the following years. This information is presented in a line graph format, effectively highlighting the yearly changes and overall variability in car accidents across the United States.

Some 44,800 road traffic fatalities occurred in the United States in 2023, and projections estimate 2024 fatalities could drop to 44,700. Motor vehicle crashes and drug overdoses are the leading causes of death among those under the age of 55 in the United States.

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.

In 2024, the state of California reported ***** motor-vehicle deaths, an increase 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 * in **. Death rates from motor vehicles have decreased in recent years and are significantly lower than the rates recorded in the ***** and *****. 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 2022 was Texas, followed by California and Florida. Light trucks are the vehicle type most often involved in fatal crashes caused by alcohol-impaired drivers, with around ***** such accidents in the United States in 2022.

The Motor Vehicle Collisions crash table contains details on the crash event. Each row represents a crash event. The Motor Vehicle Collisions data tables contain information from all police reported motor vehicle collisions in NYC. The police report (MV104-AN) is required to be filled out for collisions where someone is injured or killed, or where there is at least $1000 worth of damage (https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/ny_overlay_mv-104an_rev05_2004.pdf). It should be noted that the data is preliminary and subject to change when the MV-104AN forms are amended based on revised crash details.For the most accurate, up to date statistics on traffic fatalities, please refer to the NYPD Motor Vehicle Collisions page (updated weekly) or Vision Zero View (updated monthly). Due to success of the CompStat program, NYPD began to ask how to apply the CompStat principles to other problems. Other than homicides, the fatal incidents with which police have the most contact with the public are fatal traffic collisions. Therefore in April 1998, the Department implemented TrafficStat, which uses the CompStat model to work towards improving traffic safety. Police officers complete form MV-104AN for all vehicle collisions. The MV-104AN is a New York State form that has all of the details of a traffic collision. Before implementing Trafficstat, there was no uniform traffic safety data collection procedure for all of the NYPD precincts. Therefore, the Police Department implemented the Traffic Accident Management System (TAMS) in July 1999 in order to collect traffic data in a uniform method across the City. TAMS required the precincts manually enter a few selected MV-104AN fields to collect very basic intersection traffic crash statistics which included the number of accidents, injuries and fatalities. As the years progressed, there grew a need for additional traffic data so that more detailed analyses could be conducted. The Citywide traffic safety initiative, Vision Zero started in the year 2014. Vision Zero further emphasized the need for the collection of more traffic data in order to work towards the Vision Zero goal, which is to eliminate traffic fatalities. Therefore, the Department in March 2016 replaced the TAMS with the new Finest Online Records Management System (FORMS). FORMS enables the police officers to electronically, using a Department cellphone or computer, enter all of the MV-104AN data fields and stores all of the MV-104AN data fields in the Department’s crime data warehouse. Since all of the MV-104AN data fields are now stored for each traffic collision, detailed traffic safety analyses can be conducted as applicable.

Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) was created in the United States by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to provide an overall measure of highway safety, to help suggest solutions, and to help provide an objective basis to evaluate the effectiveness of motor vehicle safety standards and highway safety programs.

FARS contains data on a census of fatal traffic crashes within the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. To be included in FARS, a crash must involve a motor vehicle traveling on a trafficway customarily open to the public and result in the death of a person (occupant of a vehicle or a non-occupant) within 30 days of the crash. FARS has been operational since 1975 and has collected information on over 989,451 motor vehicle fatalities and collects information on over 100 different coded data elements that characterizes the crash, the vehicle, and the people involved.

FARS is vital to the mission of NHTSA to reduce the number of motor vehicle crashes and deaths on our nation's highways, and subsequently, reduce the associated economic loss to society resulting from those motor vehicle crashes and fatalities. FARS data is critical to understanding the characteristics of the environment, trafficway, vehicles, and persons involved in the crash.

NHTSA has a cooperative agreement with an agency in each state government to provide information in a standard format on fatal crashes in the state. Data is collected, coded and submitted into a micro-computer data system and transmitted to Washington, D.C. Quarterly files are produced for analytical purposes to study trends and evaluate the effectiveness highway safety programs.

Content

There are 40 separate data tables. You can find the manual, which is too large to reprint in this space, here.

Querying BigQuery tables

You can use the BigQuery Python client library to query tables in this dataset in Kernels. Note that methods available in Kernels are limited to querying data. Tables are at bigquery-public-data.nhtsa_traffic_fatalities.[TABLENAME]. Fork this kernel to get started.

Acknowledgements

This dataset was provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The number of road traffic fatalities per one million inhabitants in the United States was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 18.5 deaths (+13.81 percent). After the tenth consecutive increasing year, the number is estimated to reach 152.46 deaths and therefore a new peak in 2029. Depicted here are the estimated number of deaths which occured in relation to road traffic. They are set in relation to the population size and depicted as deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).Find more key insights for the number of road traffic fatalities per one million inhabitants in countries like Mexico and Canada.

The Motor Vehicle Collisions vehicle table contains details on each vehicle involved in the crash. Each row represents a motor vehicle involved in a crash. The data in this table goes back to April 2016 when crash reporting switched to an electronic system. The Motor Vehicle Collisions data tables contain information from all police reported motor vehicle collisions in NYC. The police report (MV104-AN) is required to be filled out for collisions where someone is injured or killed, or where there is at least $1000 worth of damage (https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/ny_overlay_mv-104an_rev05_2004.pdf). It should be noted that the data is preliminary and subject to change when the MV-104AN forms are amended based on revised crash details. Due to success of the CompStat program, NYPD began to ask how to apply the CompStat principles to other problems. Other than homicides, the fatal incidents with which police have the most contact with the public are fatal traffic collisions. Therefore in April 1998, the Department implemented TrafficStat, which uses the CompStat model to work towards improving traffic safety. Police officers complete form MV-104AN for all vehicle collisions. The MV-104AN is a New York State form that has all of the details of a traffic collision. Before implementing Trafficstat, there was no uniform traffic safety data collection procedure for all of the NYPD precincts. Therefore, the Police Department implemented the Traffic Accident Management System (TAMS) in July 1999 in order to collect traffic data in a uniform method across the City. TAMS required the precincts manually enter a few selected MV-104AN fields to collect very basic intersection traffic crash statistics which included the number of accidents, injuries and fatalities. As the years progressed, there grew a need for additional traffic data so that more detailed analyses could be conducted. The Citywide traffic safety initiative, Vision Zero started in the year 2014. Vision Zero further emphasized the need for the collection of more traffic data in order to work towards the Vision Zero goal, which is to eliminate traffic fatalities. Therefore, the Department in March 2016 replaced the TAMS with the new Finest Online Records Management System (FORMS). FORMS enables the police officers to electronically, using a Department cellphone or computer, enter all of the MV-104AN data fields and stores all of the MV-104AN data fields in the Department’s crime data warehouse. Since all of the MV-104AN data fields are now stored for each traffic collision, detailed traffic safety analyses can be conducted as applicable.

United States US: Road Fatalities: Per One Million Vehicle-km data was reported at 7.805 Ratio in 2023. This records a decrease from the previous number of 8.265 Ratio for 2022. United States US: Road Fatalities: Per One Million Vehicle-km data is updated yearly, averaging 8.404 Ratio from Dec 1994 (Median) to 2023, with 30 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 10.731 Ratio in 1994 and a record low of 6.725 Ratio in 2014. United States US: Road Fatalities: Per One Million Vehicle-km data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.OECD.ITF: Road Traffic and Road Accident Fatalities: OECD Member: Annual. [COVERAGE] ROAD FATALITIES A road fatality is any person killed immediately or dying within 30 days as a result of an injury accident, excluding suicides. A killed person is excluded if the competent authority declares the cause of death to be suicide, i.e. a deliberate act to injure oneself resulting in death. For countries that do not apply the threshold of 30 days, conversion coefficients are estimated so that comparison on the basis of the 30-day definition can be made. ROAD TRAFFIC Road traffic is any movement of a road vehicle on a given road network. When a road vehicle is being carried on another vehicle, only the movement of the carrying (active mode) is considered. [COVERAGE] ROAD TRAFFIC IRTAD - Data refer to road motor vehicle traffic of motorised two-wheelers, passenger cars, goods road motor vehicles and buses. [STAT_CONC_DEF] ROAD TRAFFIC IRTAD - Data are calculated using automatic and manual roadside traffic counts.

United States US: Road Fatalities: Per One Million Road Motor Vehicles data was reported at 120.615 Ratio in 2019. This records a decrease from the previous number of 123.083 Ratio for 2018. United States US: Road Fatalities: Per One Million Road Motor Vehicles data is updated yearly, averaging 165.059 Ratio from Dec 1994 (Median) to 2019, with 26 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 212.199 Ratio in 1995 and a record low of 118.903 Ratio in 2014. United States US: Road Fatalities: Per One Million Road Motor Vehicles data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.OECD.ITF: Road Traffic and Road Accident Fatalities: OECD Member: Annual. VEHICLES The stock of road motor vehicles is the number of road motor vehicles registered at a given date in a country and licenced to use roads open to public traffic. This includes road vehicles exempted from annual taxes or licence fee; it also includes imported second-hand vehicles and other road vehicles according to national practices. It should not include military vehicles.; ROAD FATALITIES A road fatality is any person killed immediately or dying within 30 days as a result of an injury accident, excluding suicides. A killed person is excluded if the competent authority declares the cause of death to be suicide, i.e. a deliberate act to injure oneself resulting in death. For countries that do not apply the threshold of 30 days, conversion coefficients are estimated so that comparison on the basis of the 30-day definition can be made. VEHICLES A road motor vehicle is a road vehicle fitted with an engine whence it derives its sole means of propulsion, which is normally used for carrying persons or goods or for drawing, on the road, vehicles used for the carriage of persons or goods.; VEHICLES Motor vehicle refers to any motorised (mechanically or electronically powered) road vehicle not operated on rail.

This indicator provides information about the mortality rate from motor vehicle crashes and traffic-related injuries, including among pedestrians. Death rate has been age-adjusted to the 2000 U.S. standard population. Single-year data are only available for Los Angeles County overall, Service Planning Areas, Supervisorial Districts, City of Los Angeles overall, and City of Los Angeles Council Districts.Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death from unintentional injury both in Los Angeles County and in the US. While many factors contribute to motor vehicle crash mortality, the built environment plays a critical role. Communities that are exposed to heavy traffic or that lack adequate walking infrastructure for pedestrians have higher rates of motor vehicle crash-related injuries and deaths. They are also more impacted by traffic-related environmental hazards, such as vehicle emissions and air pollution. In Los Angeles County, many of these communities are also home to a large number of low-income residents. Thus, motor vehicle crash mortality can be viewed as an environmental justice issue.For more information about the Community Health Profiles Data Initiative, please see the initiative homepage.

Traffic fatalities within the City of Chicago that are included in Vision Zero Chicago (VZC) statistics. Vision Zero is Chicago’s commitment to eliminating fatalities and serious injuries from traffic crashes. The VZC Traffic Fatality List is compiled by the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) after monthly reviews of fatal traffic crash information provided by Chicago Police Department’s Major Accident Investigation Unit (MAIU). CDOT uses a standardized process – sometimes differing from other sources and everyday use of the term -- to determine whether a death is a “traffic fatality.” Therefore, the traffic fatalities included in this list may differ from the fatal crashes reported in the full Traffic Crashes dataset (https://data.cityofchicago.org/d/85ca-t3if). Official traffic crash data are published by the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) on an annual basis. This VZC Traffic Fatality List is updated monthly. Once IDOT publishes its crash data for a year, this dataset is edited to reflect IDOT’s findings. VZC Traffic Fatalities can be linked with other traffic crash datasets using the “Person_ID” field. State of Illinois considers a “traffic fatality” as any death caused by a traffic crash involving a motor vehicle, within 30 days of the crash. Fatalities that meet this definition are included in this VZC Traffic Fatality List unless excluded by any criteria below. There may be records in this dataset that do not appear as fatalities in the other datasets. The following criteria exclude a death from being considered a "traffic fatality," and are derived from Federal and State reporting standards. The Medical Examiner determined that the primary cause of the fatality was not the traffic crash, including: a. The fatality was reported as a suicide based on a police investigation. b. The fatality was reported as a homicide in which the "party at fault" intentionally inflicted serious bodily harm that caused the victim's death. c. The fatality was caused directly and exclusively by a medical condition or the fatality was not attributable to road user movement on a public roadway. (Note: If a person driving suffers a medical emergency and consequently hits and kills another road user, the other road user is included, although the driver suffering a medical emergency is excluded.) The crash did not occur within a trafficway. The crash involved a train or other such mode of transport within the rail dedicated right-of-way. The fatality was on a roadway not under Chicago Police Department jurisdiction, including: a. The fatality was occurred on an expressway. The City of Chicago does not have oversight on the expressway system. However, a fatality on expressway ramps occurring within the City jurisdiction will be counted in VZC Traffic Fatality List. b. The fatality occurred outside City limits. Crashes on streets along the City boundary may be assigned to another jurisdiction after the investigation if it is determined that the crash started or substantially occurred on the side of the street that is outside the City limits. Jurisdiction of streets along the City boundary are split between City and neighboring jurisdictions along the street centerline. The fatality is not a person (e.g., an animal). Change 12/7/2023: We have removed the RD_NO (Chicago Police Department report number) for privacy reasons.

Data Source: DC Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) and American Community Survey (ACS) 1-Year Estimates

Why This Matters

Motor vehicle accidents are one of the leading causes of death in the US, with over 40,000 annual deaths and millions of additional injuries. Transportation is critical to accessing work, food, medical care, social events, and more. Yet, many people are injured or die in motor vehicle accidents while accessing these services.

When people live in areas where cars drive faster, they are at greater risk of dying while accessing these services. Most people (90%) hit by cars driving 23 miles per hour (mph) survive. Yet, most people (75%) hit by cars driving 50 mph die.

Modern transportation and road infrastructure has been shaped by policies of racial segregation and inequitable federal investments. Nationally, individuals who are Black, Indigenous, or people of color are more likely to live near dangerous roadways with fast-moving traffic. They are also more likely to live in communities with less pedestrian infrastructure.

The District Response

Vision Zero was launched in 2014 to improve road safety and set a goal of zero traffic fatalities or serious injuries.

The District Department of Transportation’s Bicycle Lane Program has built over 100 miles of bikes lanes since 2001, including 24 miles of protected bike lanes.Automatic Traffic Enforcement reduces dangerous traffic violations and enhances safety for people travelling by all modes.

In 2022, over 4.5 million light trucks were involved in U.S. traffic crashes, accounting for 43.2 percent of the overall total. The second highest were passenger cars, being involved in four million car crashes and accounting for 38.1 percent of the total. Motor vehicle crashes are among the leading causes of death among those under the age of 55 in the United States.

The Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) dataset is as of December 18, 2020, and is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT)/Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD). This current dataset is for FARS 2019 data. One of the primary objectives of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is to reduce the staggering human toll and property damage that motor vehicle traffic crashes impose on our society. FARS is a census of fatal motor vehicle crashes with a set of data files documenting all qualifying fatalities that occurred within the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico since 1975. To qualify as a FARS case, the crash had to involve a motor vehicle traveling on a traffic way customarily open to the public, and must have resulted in the death of a motorist or a non-motorist within 30 days of the crash. This data file contains information about crash characteristics and environmental conditions at the time of the crash. There is one record per crash. On the NHTSA website, raw FARS data are made available to the public in Statistical Analysis System (SAS) data files as well as comma-separated values (CSV) files. Current and past raw FARS data are available at: https://www.nhtsa.gov/node/97996/251. The FARS Coding and Editing Manual contains a detailed description of each data element including coding instructions and attribute definitions. The Coding Manual is published for each year of data collection, and current and past manuals are currently available at: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/#/DocumentTypeList/23.

The graph illustrates the number of car accidents per day in the United States from 2012 to 2022. The x-axis represents the years, ranging from 2012 to 2022, while the y-axis displays the daily count of car accidents. Throughout this 11-year period, the number of accidents fluctuates significantly, with the highest number recorded at 18,637 accidents per day in 2016 and the lowest at 1,725 accidents per day in 2015. Other notable values include 18,451 accidents in 2018 and 1,851 accidents in 2019. The data reveals a volatile trend, characterized by substantial increases and sharp decreases in daily car accidents over the years. This information is presented in a line graph format, effectively highlighting the yearly variations and overall instability in the number of car accidents across the United States.

The Fataility Analysis Reporting System (FARS) dataset is as of July 1, 2017, and is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT)/Bureau of Transportation Statistics's (BTS's) National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD). One of the primary objectives of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is to reduce the staggering human toll and property damage that motor vehicle traffic crashes impose on our society. FARS is a census of fatal motor vehicle crashes with a set of data files documenting all qualifying fatalities that occurred within the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico since 1975. To qualify as a FARS case, the crash had to involve a motor vehicle traveling on a trafficway customarily open to the public, and must have resulted in the death of a motorist or a non-motorist within 30 days of the crash. This data file contains information about crash characteristics and environmental conditions at the time of the crash. There is one record per crash. Please note: 207 records in this database were geocoded to latitude and logtitude of 0,0 due to lack of location information or errors in the reported locations. FARS data are made available to the public in Statistical Analysis System (SAS) data files as well as Database Files (DBF). Over the years changes have been made to the type of data collected and the way the data are presented in the SAS data files. Some data elements have been dropped and new ones added, coding of individual data elements has changed, and new SAS data files have been created. Coding changes and the years for which individual data items are available are shown in the “Data Element Definitions and Codes” section of this document. The FARS Coding and Editing Manual contains a detailed description of each SAS data elements including coding instructions and attribute definitions. The Coding Manual is published for each year of data collection. Years 2001 to current are available at: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Cats/listpublications.aspx?Id=J&ShowBy=DocType Note: In this manual the word vehicle means in-transport motor vehicle unless otherwise noted.