Police reported 6,180,241 crashes on US roads in 2024, roughly 12 every minute, and 39,254 people died in them. Deaths have now fallen for several years running: NHTSA's early estimate for 2025 is about 36,640, with the second-lowest death rate per mile on record. Here is what the federal data says about how often crashes happen, what causes the deadly ones, and where the risk is highest.
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NHTSA estimates 6,180,241 police-reported crashes in 2024, up 0.7% from 6,138,474 in 2023. Spread across the year that is about 16,886 crashes a day, or 11.7 a minute, one roughly every five seconds. They injured an estimated 2.42 million people. (NHTSA, Overview of Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes in 2024)
39,254 people were killed, 1,771 fewer than the 41,025 of 2023, a 4.3% drop. That is 107 deaths a day, alongside 6,618 people injured every day (NHTSA Quick Facts 2024). The death rate was 1.19 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, down from 1.26.
The fall continued. NHTSA’s statistical projection puts 2025 deaths at about 36,640, down 6.7%, with a rate of 1.10 per 100 million miles, the second lowest in recorded history behind 1.08 in 2014 (NHTSA early estimate, 2025). Its first-quarter 2026 projection, about 7,770 deaths, would be the 16th straight quarterly decline (NHTSA, Q1 2026).
| Year | Traffic deaths | In distraction-affected crashes |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 39,007 | 3,154 |
| 2021 | 43,230 | 3,521 |
| 2022 | 42,721 | 3,316 |
| 2023 | 41,025 | 3,283 |
| 2024 | 39,254 | 3,208 |
| 2025 (early estimate) | about 36,640 | not yet published |
NHTSA codes several factors for every fatal crash, and one crash can carry more than one, so these shares overlap. For 2024:
| Factor | Deaths, 2024 | Share of all deaths |
|---|---|---|
| An alcohol-impaired driver (BAC .08+) | 11,904 | 30% |
| Speeding-related | 11,288 | 29% |
| Unbelted passenger vehicle occupants | 9,758 | 48% of occupants killed, where belt use was known |
| A distracted driver | 3,208 | 8.2% |
| A hit-and-run driver | 2,758 | 7% |
| A drowsy driver | 644 | 1.6% |
Drunk driving killed one person every 44 minutes on average in 2024 (NHTSA, Alcohol-Impaired Driving). Speeding-related crashes also injured an estimated 316,757 people, and 87% of speeding deaths happened off the interstates, on ordinary roads (NHTSA, Speeding). In a 2025 AAA Foundation survey, 7.4% of drivers admitted driving in the past month when they may have been over the legal limit, 9.8% of men against 4.9% of women (AAA Foundation, 2025 Traffic Safety Culture Index).
Pedestrians are a large share of the toll: 7,080 were killed in 2024, and 25% of those deaths were hit-and-runs. The Governors Highway Safety Association projects about 6,732 pedestrian deaths for 2025, a 7% fall and the third straight annual decline (GHSA, 2025).
In 2024 3,208 people were killed and an estimated 315,167 injured in crashes involving a distracted driver. Distraction was reported in 8% of fatal crashes, 13% of injury crashes and 12% of all police-reported crashes, 732,914 crashes in all (NHTSA, Distracted Driving in 2024). That works out to about nine deaths a day and one distraction-affected crash every 43 seconds.
The reported numbers are low. An IIHS study published in August 2026 compared phone data from safe-driving apps with police reports for the same crashes: phones were in use in the 30 seconds before impact in 7% of single-vehicle and 8% of two-vehicle crashes, while police recorded phone use in under 1%, an undercount by a factor of at least seven (IIHS, 2026). NHTSA’s own cost study, using in-car video, put distraction in 29% of all crashes, 10,546 deaths and $98.2 billion in 2019.
How often drivers do it. At a typical daylight moment in 2024, 1.9% of drivers were holding a phone to their ear and 4.5% were visibly manipulating a handheld device, up from 3.0% in 2023; among drivers 16 to 24 it was 8.7%, the highest since NHTSA began measuring in 2005 (NHTSA, Driver Electronic Device Use in 2024). Asked about the past month, 38% of drivers admitted reading a text or email while driving, 28% sending one and 32% holding and talking on a phone, even though 93% rate texting behind the wheel as very or extremely dangerous (AAA Foundation, 2025). Among high school students who drove, 46% texted or emailed while driving in 2025, rising from 22% in 9th grade to 61% in 12th (CDC, Youth Risk Behavior Survey).
Manipulating a phone raised crash risk two to six times in a naturalistic study of more than 3,000 drivers (IIHS), and hands-free is not free: after a voice-command task, measurable mental distraction lingered for up to 27 seconds (AAA Foundation).
From the Governors Highway Safety Association’s table (laws reviewed June 2025) and IIHS’s law tracker:
Official counts are small: NHTSA recorded 644 deaths in crashes involving drowsy drivers in 2024, 1.6% of all traffic deaths, and its latest crash estimate is 91,000 police-reported drowsy-driving crashes injuring about 50,000 people in 2017 (NHTSA, drowsy driving). NHTSA notes there is broad agreement across traffic safety, sleep science and public health that these figures underestimate the problem.
Studies that estimate it directly come out ten times higher. The AAA Foundation estimates that 17.6% of all fatal crashes in 2017-2021 involved a drowsy driver, about 29,834 deaths over five years (6,726 in 2021 alone) (AAA Foundation, 2024). GHSA’s 2026 update applies the same method to 2023 and gets 6,326 deaths, about ten times the 633 officially reported that year (GHSA, Wake Up Call 2026). In-car video of real drivers found the driver drowsy in 9.5% of all crashes (AAA Foundation, 2018).
Almost everyone does some of it. In the AAA Foundation’s 2025 survey, 96% of drivers admitted at least one aggressive or road-rage behavior in the past year; 81% reported aggressive driving (78% in its 2016 study), 7% road rage (4% in 2016), and 11% some violent behavior (AAA Foundation, Aggressive Driving and Road Rage, 2025).
| In the past year, drivers who… | At least once |
|---|---|
| Sped up as a light turned from yellow to red | 82% |
| Honked in annoyance (not to avoid a crash) | 66% |
| Wondered if another driver had a weapon | 53% |
| Merged even though another driver tried to close the gap | 52% |
| Sped up to stop someone passing | 42% |
| Tailgated to make someone speed up or move (51% in 2016) | 39% |
| Made an angry gesture | 37% |
| Weaved in and out of lanes to overtake | 30% |
| Cut off another vehicle on purpose (12% in 2016) | 20% |
| Followed a vehicle to confront the driver | 8% |
| Got out of the car to confront another driver | 6% |
| Forced another vehicle off the road | 4% |
| Bumped another vehicle on purpose | 3% |
(AAA Foundation, full report, Tables 8-9) Young drivers lead: 36% of drivers aged 16-24 showed high levels of aggressive driving against 10% of those 75 and older. Speed is the everyday version; 47.6% of drivers said they had gone 15 mph over the limit on a freeway in the past month (AAA Foundation, 2025 Traffic Safety Culture Index).
When it turns violent. The Gun Violence Archive recorded 404 people shot in road-rage incidents in 2025, 113 of them killed, in 397 incidents, down from 473 shot (125 killed) in 2024. That is still more than four times the 89 shot in 2014. Across 2016-2025, 3,778 people were shot in road-rage incidents and 976 died. Texas had the most incidents in 2025 (75), then Florida (35); by city, San Antonio (18) and Houston (17) led (Gun Violence Archive, 2025 road-rage query; counts as of September 24, 2026, and GVA updates records over time).
In the federal crash data, police coded 687 drivers in 2024 fatal crashes for aggressive driving or road rage, in crashes that killed 759 people (our count from NHTSA’s FARS 2024 national file). That code is rarely used, so it understates the role of aggression; speeding alone was a factor in crashes that killed 11,288.
Deaths per 100 million miles driven in 2024, from IIHS’s state table built on federal crash data (U.S. rate 1.19):
| Highest | Deaths per 100M miles | Lowest | Deaths per 100M miles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mississippi | 1.81 | Massachusetts | 0.59 |
| Arizona | 1.74 | Rhode Island | 0.68 |
| South Carolina | 1.67 | Utah | 0.77 |
| Arkansas | 1.53 | Minnesota | 0.81 |
| Tennessee | 1.52 | Vermont | 0.82 |
(IIHS, fatality facts by state) NHTSA’s 2025 early estimates put New Mexico highest at a projected 1.59, then Mississippi 1.52, South Carolina 1.51, Arizona 1.50 and West Virginia 1.46, with Rhode Island lowest at 0.47; all ten NHTSA regions are projected to have fewer deaths than in 2024.
For all 50 states side by side, with alcohol, speeding and seat belt shares for each, see our best and worst drivers by state, built from the same federal crash data.
91.3% of adults in the front seat wore a belt in 2025 (NHTSA, seat belt use in 2025), yet the unbelted remain close to half of those killed: 9,758 unrestrained passenger vehicle occupants died in 2024, 48% of occupant deaths where belt use was known. IIHS’s count, for occupants aged 13 and up, finds only 46% of drivers and 46% of passengers killed were belted (IIHS, yearly snapshot). NHTSA estimates seat belts saved 374,276 lives from 1975 through 2017 (NHTSA, lives saved).
The federal government’s most recent costing, for 2019, put the economic cost of all US motor vehicle crashes at $340 billion: medical care, lost productivity, property damage, legal and emergency services. Counting the lost quality of life as well, the total societal harm was $1.37 trillion (NHTSA). Fatigue-related fatal and injury crashes alone cost an estimated $109 billion a year, not counting property damage (NHTSA analysis for GHSA).
Deaths come from NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System, a census of every fatal crash on public roads; crash and injury totals come from its Crash Report Sampling System, an estimate built from a national sample of police reports. The 2024 figures are NHTSA’s annual report file, released in 2026; 2025 and 2026 figures are NHTSA’s statistical projections and will be revised. State rates are from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, surveys from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety and the CDC, and state laws from the Governors Highway Safety Association. Every number links to the page it came from. Numbers are as of September 2026.
About 6.18 million police-reported crashes in 2024, according to NHTSA, which is roughly 16,900 a day or 12 a minute. They injured about 2.42 million people and killed 39,254.
39,254 in 2024, down 4.3% from 41,025 in 2023. NHTSA's early estimate for 2025 is about 36,640, with a death rate of 1.10 per 100 million miles, the second lowest on record.
No single cause, and a crash can involve several. In 2024, crashes with an alcohol-impaired driver killed 11,904 people (30% of deaths) and speeding-related crashes 11,288 (29%). Distraction was recorded in crashes that killed 3,208, though police reports are known to undercount phone use.
NHTSA recorded 404 fatal crashes in 2024 where a driver was using a cellphone, killing 437 people, within 3,208 deaths from all distraction. An IIHS study found police reports undercount phone use before crashes by a factor of at least seven.
By deaths per 100 million miles driven in 2024, Mississippi was highest at 1.81, followed by Arizona, South Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee. Massachusetts was lowest at 0.59.
In a 2025 AAA Foundation survey, 96% of drivers admitted at least one aggressive or road-rage behavior in the past year, and 11% some violent behavior, such as following a car to confront the driver (8%). The Gun Violence Archive counted 404 people shot in road-rage incidents in 2025, 113 of them killed.