Some 47,000 road traffic fatalities are projected to have occurred in the United States in 2021, which was the largest amount of fatalities recorded in the country since 2012. This fatality volume is estimated to dip in 2022, down to nearly 46,300. 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.

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.

This statistic displays the total number of road fatalities in the Netherlands from 1996 to 2022. It shows that between 1996 and 2022, the number of road fatalities in the Netherlands fluctuated. In 2022, 737 people died in traffic-related accidents, an increase in comparison to the previous year.

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.

In 2022, around 11 people per 1 million inhabitants died as a result of road accidents in Chile. New Zealand, with around seven fatalities per 1 million inhabitants, was second in the ranking.

This database that can be used for macro-level analysis of road accidents on interurban roads in Europe. Through the variables it contains, road accidents can be explained using variables related to economic resources invested in roads, traffic, road network, socioeconomic characteristics, legislative measures and meteorology. This repository contains the data used for the analysis carried out in the papers:

1. Calvo-Poyo F., Navarro-Moreno J., de Oña J. (2020) Road Investment and Traffic Safety: An International Study. Sustainability 12:6332. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12166332

2. Navarro-Moreno J., Calvo-Poyo F., de Oña J. (2022) Influence of road investment and maintenance expenses on injured traffic crashes in European roads. Int J Sustain Transp 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/15568318.2022.2082344

3. Navarro-Moreno, J., Calvo-Poyo, F., de Oña, J. (2022) Investment in roads and traffic safety: linked to economic development? A European comparison. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22567

The file with the database is available in excel.

DATA SOURCES

The database presents data from 1998 up to 2016 from 20 european countries: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom. Crash data were obtained from the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) [2], which offers enough level of disaggregation between crashes occurring inside versus outside built-up areas.

With reference to the data on economic resources invested in roadways, deserving mention –given its extensive coverage—is the database of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), managed by the International Transport Forum (ITF) [1], which collects data on investment in the construction of roads and expenditure on their maintenance, following the definitions of the United Nations System of National Accounts (2008 SNA). Despite some data gaps, the time series present consistency from one country to the next. Moreover, to confirm the consistency and complete missing data, diverse additional sources, mainly the national Transport Ministries of the respective countries were consulted. All the monetary values were converted to constant prices in 2015 using the OECD price index.

To obtain the rest of the variables in the database, as well as to ensure consistency in the time series and complete missing data, the following national and international sources were consulted:

• Eurostat [3]
• Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE). European Union [4]
• The World Bank [5]
• World Health Organization (WHO) [6]
• European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) [7]
• European Road Safety Observatory (ERSO) [8]
• European Climatic Energy Mixes (ECEM) of the Copernicus Climate Change [9]
• EU BestPoint-Project [10]
• Ministerstvo dopravy, República Checa [11]
• Bundesministerium für Verkehr und digitale Infrastruktur, Alemania [12]
• Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat, Países Bajos [13]
• National Statistics Office, Malta [14]
• Ministério da Economia e Transição Digital, Portugal [15]
• Ministerio de Fomento, España [16]
• Trafikverket, Suecia [17]
• Ministère de l’environnement de l’énergie et de la mer, Francia [18]
• Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti, Italia [19–25]
• Statistisk sentralbyrå, Noruega [26-29]
• Instituto Nacional de Estatística, Portugal [30]
• Infraestruturas de Portugal S.A., Portugal [31–35]
• Road Safety Authority (RSA), Ireland [36]

DATA BASE DESCRIPTION

The database was made trying to combine the longest possible time period with the maximum number of countries with complete dataset (some countries like Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta and Norway were eliminated from the definitive dataset owing to a lack of data or breaks in the time series of records). Taking into account the above, the definitive database is made up of 19 variables, and contains data from 20 countries during the period between 1998 and 2016. Table 1 shows the coding of the variables, as well as their definition and unit of measure.

Table. Database metadata

| Code | Variable and unit | | fatal_pc_km | Fatalities per billion passenger-km | | fatal_mIn | Fatalities per million inhabitants | | accid_adj_pc_km | Accidents per billion passenger-km | | p_km | Billions of passenger-km | | croad_inv_km | Investment in roads construction per kilometer, €/km (2015 constant prices) | | croad_maint_km | Expenditure on roads maintenance per kilometer €/km (2015 constant prices) | | prop_motorwa | Proportion of motorways over the total road network (%) | | populat | Population, in millions of inhabitants | | unemploy | Unemployment rate (%) | | petro_car | Consumption of gasolina and petrol derivatives (tons), per tourism | | alcohol | Alcohol consumption, in liters per capita (age > 15) | | mot_index | Motorization index, in cars per 1,000 inhabitants | | den_populat | Population density, inhabitants/km2 | | cgdp | Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in € (2015 constant prices) | | cgdp_cap | GDP per capita, in € (2015 constant prices) | | precipit | Average depth of rain water during a year (mm) | | prop_elder | Proportion of people over 65 years (%) | | dps | Demerit Point System, dummy variable (0: no; 1: yes) | | freight | Freight transport, in billions of ton-km |

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This database was carried out in the framework of the project “Inversión en carreteras y seguridad vial: un análisis internacional (INCASE)”, financed by: FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades–Agencia Estatal de Investigación/Proyecto RTI2018-101770-B-I00, within Spain´s National Program of R+D+i Oriented to Societal Challenges.

Moreover, the authors would like to express their gratitude to the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda of Spain (MITMA), and the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure of Germany (BMVI) for providing data for this study.

REFERENCES

1. International Transport Forum OECD iLibrary | Transport infrastructure investment and maintenance.

2. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe UNECE Statistical Database Available online: https://w3.unece.org/PXWeb2015/pxweb/en/STAT/STAT_40-TRTRANS/?rxid=18ad5d0d-bd5e-476f-ab7c-40545e802eeb (accessed on Apr 28, 2020).

3. European Commission Database - Eurostat Available online: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database (accessed on Apr 28, 2021).

4. Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport. European Commission EU Transport in figures - Statistical Pocketbooks Available online: https://ec.europa.eu/transport/facts-fundings/statistics_en (accessed on Apr 28, 2021).

5. World Bank Group World Bank Open Data | Data Available online: https://data.worldbank.org/ (accessed on Apr 30, 2021).

6. World Health Organization (WHO) WHO Global Information System on Alcohol and Health Available online: https://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.GISAH?lang=en (accessed on Apr 29, 2021).

7. European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) Traffic Law Enforcement across the EU - Tackling the Three Main Killers on Europe’s Roads; Brussels, Belgium, 2011;

8. Copernicus Climate Change Service Climate data for the European energy sector from 1979 to 2016 derived from ERA-Interim Available online: https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/sis-european-energy-sector?tab=overview (accessed on Apr 29, 2021).

9. Klipp, S.; Eichel, K.; Billard, A.; Chalika, E.; Loranc, M.D.; Farrugia, B.; Jost, G.; Møller, M.; Munnelly, M.; Kallberg, V.P.; et al. European Demerit Point Systems : Overview of their main features and expert opinions. EU BestPoint-Project 2011, 1–237.

10. Ministerstvo dopravy Serie: Ročenka dopravy; Ročenka dopravy; Centrum dopravního výzkumu: Prague, Czech Republic;

11. Bundesministerium für Verkehr und digitale Infrastruktur Verkehr in Zahlen 2003/2004; Hamburg, Germany, 2004; ISBN 3871542946.

12. Bundesministerium für Verkehr und digitale Infrastruktur Verkehr in Zahlen 2018/2019. In Verkehrsdynamik; Flensburg, Germany, 2018 ISBN 9783000612947.

13. Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat Rijksjaarverslag 2018 a Infrastructuurfonds; The Hague, Netherlands, 2019; ISBN 0921-7371.

14. Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Milieu Rijksjaarverslag 2014 a Infrastructuurfonds; The Hague, Netherlands, 2015; ISBN 0921- 7371.

15. Ministério da Economia e Transição Digital Base de Dados de Infraestruturas - GEE Available online: https://www.gee.gov.pt/pt/publicacoes/indicadores-e-estatisticas/base-de-dados-de-infraestruturas (accessed on Apr 29, 2021).

16. Ministerio de Fomento. Dirección General de Programación Económica y Presupuestos. Subdirección General de Estudios Económicos y Estadísticas Serie: Anuario estadístico; NIPO 161-13-171-0; Centro de Publicaciones. Secretaría General Técnica. Ministerio de Fomento: Madrid, Spain;

17. Trafikverket The Swedish Transport Administration Annual report: 2017; 2018; ISBN 978-91-7725-272-6.

18. Ministère de l’Équipement, du T. et de la M. Mémento de statistiques des transports 2003; Ministère de l’environnement de l’énergie et de la mer, 2005;

19. Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti Conto Nazionale delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti Anno 2000; Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato: Roma, Italy, 2001;

20. Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti Conto nazionale dei trasporti 1999. 2000.

21. Generale, D.; Informativi, S. delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti Anno 2004.

22. Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti *Conto Nazionale delle Infrastrutture e dei

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.

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.

The Motor Vehicle Collisions person table contains details for people involved in the crash. Each row represents a person (driver, occupant, pedestrian, bicyclist,..) 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.

The dataset contains year-, state- and city-wise compiled data on the number of road accidents, persons injured, including grievously injured, and killed due to different types of weather conditions such as hail or sleet, sunny or clear, rainy, foggy or misty, cloudy, snowfall, dust storm, snow, strong wind, other extraordinary weather condition, light or heavy rain, flooding of slipways/rivulets, very hot or cold, etc. The cities covered in the dataset are those with over one million population

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.

Turkey TR: Road Fatalities: Per One Million Inhabitants data was reported at 7.674 Ratio in 2023. This records an increase from the previous number of 6.153 Ratio for 2022. Turkey TR: Road Fatalities: Per One Million Inhabitants data is updated yearly, averaging 6.642 Ratio from Dec 1994 (Median) to 2023, with 30 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 10.190 Ratio in 1994 and a record low of 4.566 Ratio in 2014. Turkey TR: Road Fatalities: Per One Million Inhabitants 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 Turkey – Table TR.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.

This table contains data on the annual number of fatal and severe road traffic injuries per population and per miles traveled by transport mode, for California, its regions, counties, county divisions, cities/towns, and census tracts. Injury data is from the Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS), California Highway Patrol (CHP), 2002-2010 data from the Transportation Injury Mapping System (TIMS) . The table is part of a series of indicators in the [Healthy Communities Data and Indicators Project of the Office of Health Equity]. Transportation accidents are the second leading cause of death in California for people under the age of 45 and account for an average of 4,018 deaths per year (2006-2010). Risks of injury in traffic collisions are greatest for motorcyclists, pedestrians, and bicyclists and lowest for bus and rail passengers. Minority communities bear a disproportionate share of pedestrian-car fatalities; Native American male pedestrians experience 4 times the death rate as Whites or Asians, and African-Americans and Latinos experience twice the rate as Whites or Asians. More information about the data table and a data dictionary can be found in the About/Attachments section.

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.

The number of road-traffic related injuries in the United States has decreased by roughly 17 percent between 2019 and 2020, whereas fatalities increased by almost 8 percent. Between 2010 and 2020, road traffic injuries in the United States grew by nearly 34,000 incidents to some 2.28 million road traffic related injuries in 2020. Over the same period, fatalities also increased by about 5,800. This follows two decades of a general decrease in the amount of traffic-related injuries.

Why are traffic injuries increasing? In the United States, male drivers are behind the wheel in the majority of fatal crashes. Though speeding and driving under the influence of alcohol are often to blame, neither have led to a rise in traffic fatalities in the U.S.: instead, cellphones are primarily the cause. Smartphone ownership has become almost omnipresent in the U.S. since 2010, and drivers are likely to be distracted by texting and using social media. Young drivers are the ones accounting for the highest share of cellphone use fatalities.

Changes in mobility Another reason why fatal accidents are rising in number is that non-occupants’ exposure to risk is also increasing. As residents become more encouraged to walk or cycle in cities, the extra time amongst traffic has led to higher rates of fatalities and injuries amongst cyclists and pedestrians. Lastly, poor infrastructure and lack of awareness by motorists is prevalent in large parts of the United States.

The dataset contains year-, state-, city-wise number of injured, dead, and offenders of Road Accidents, categorized by different types of vehicles by which accidents were caused, such as Truck/Lorry/Mini Truck, Animal Drawn Vehicle, Hand Drawn Vehicle/Cycle Rickshaw, Two Wheelers, Bicycle, Other Motor Vehicles, Bus, SUV/Car/Jeep, Tractor, Three Wheeler/Auto Rickshaw, Jeep, Car, Truck/Lorry, SUV/Station Wagon, and others, including Pedestrians

The number of Motor Vehicle fatalities in British Columbia by month and year. A motor vehicle fatality is a road user (driver, passenger, pedestrian, and cyclist) who is injured in a collision involving a motor vehicle on a 'public highway' as defined in the Motor Vehicle Act and the victim is deceased within 30 days of the collision as a result of their injuries. This data excludes fatal victims on roads where the Motor Vehicle Act does not apply (such as forest-service roads, industrial roads and private driveways); fatal victims of off-road snow mobile accidents; and homicides or suicides.