During the five-year period between 2020 and 2024, the U.S. recorded 189,208 fatal traffic crashes. This study examines the states that have seen a notable rise in fatal accidents during that period, using federal crash data to discover which parts of the country have been subject to the most severe traffic death rates.
We’ll also consider the role played by infrastructural issues and the behavioral factors, such as speeding and impairment, that heavily influence American road safety.
Let’s begin with a broad look at national road fatality rates.
U.S. Annual Fatal Crash Counts
The data behind fatal crashes on U.S. roads between 2020 and 2024 reveals a complex pattern. It begins with a pandemic-led surge, a long plateau, and a gradual, slight decline that effectively returns the country to 2020 crash levels. This means that, if we judge progress by fatalities, very little has been made.
Initially, 2020 to 2021 saw a sharp upward shift, with fatal crashes rising from 35,935 to 39,785 (a 10.7% increase). This was widely due to a rise in notably risky driving habits during the pandemic (such as speeding on less-congested roads and a lack of enforcement) and represented one of the largest annual increases in modern traffic safety history.
Fatal crashes remained elevated in 2022 (39,422) and fell by less than 1%, suggesting that many of the bad habits exhibited between 2020 and 2021 remained prevalent. Combined, 2021 and 2022 accounted for more than 79,200 deaths, nearly 42% of the five-year total.
The following years brought modest improvement. Fatal crashes fell to 37,769 in 2023 and modestly fell again to 36,297 in 2024 (respective declines of 4.2% and 3.9%). However, overall progress remains limited. The 2024 total was just 362 crashes lower than those recorded in 2020.
That’s a 1% reduction over five years. Despite vehicle safety improvements, infrastructure investment, and Vision Zero initiatives, the drop in fatality numbers has been far smaller than anticipated.
And in some states, road safety has significantly worsened.
High-Risk States
When we adjust fatal crash data for population, the parts of the U.S. subject to the highest levels of road danger are very different to those ranking high for raw crash totals. While total fatality counts reflect a scale of loss, they also obscure individual risk.
For example: a state with 40 million residents and 4,000 yearly fatal crashes represents a very different level of danger than a state with far fewer residents and a similar number of crashes.
Per-capita analysis reveals the highest levels of road risk persist among a group of Southern and rural states. The states in question share many characteristics: rural road networks, higher-than-average travel speeds, remote locations, and limited emergency response infrastructure.
By proportionate measure, Mississippi ranks as the most dangerous state in the country, recording an average of 22.88 fatal crashes per 100,000 residents and 3,371 fatal crashes between 2020 and 2024.
Those numbers represent nearly double the rate of many larger states, perfectly illustrating the extent to which population adjustment can change the road safety perspective.
Wyoming ranks second (19.12 per 100,000 despite recording only 557 fatal crashes). The state’s widely spread population, necessarily long travel distances, and limited access to trauma care mean a serious crash has a comparatively high chance of involving a fatality.
Arkansas ranks third (19 per 100,000), followed by New Mexico (18.83). Both states are heavily reliant on extensive rural road networks and personal vehicle travel, factors that contribute to persistently high fatality rates.
The rest of the top ten further illustrates how road fatality risk particularly affects states with rural infrastructure and limited transport options: South Carolina (18.82 per 100,000, over 5,000 fatal crashes), Montana (17.68), Alabama (17.47), and Louisiana (17.2) all feature consistently high fatality rates.
Tennessee (16.6 fatal crashes per 100,000) posted the highest total number of fatal crashes among the top ten states (5,874 fatalities), with Oklahoma completing the list (15.72 per 100,000).
Collectively, these ten states saw 32,254 fatal crashes between 2020 and 2024, maintaining average fatality rates over 50% higher than the national level. Clearly, reducing road deaths will demand targeted infrastructure improvements, enhanced safety measures, and sustained policy intervention.
If we consider all fatal crashes across the United States during the study period, it’s clear that fatal crashes often involve multiple deaths. But what is the actual yearly average rate?
The Number of Lives Lost Per Fatal Crash
Between 2020 and 2024, the 189,208 fatal road crashes in the U.S. involved 205,237 deaths, with many crashes involving more than one fatality.
The fatalities-per-crash ratio remained extremely consistent throughout the period, with the range restricted to between 1.08 and 1.09. This suggests that while crash totals may fluctuate, the cumulative lethality of crashes doesn’t. As a result, reductions in fatality numbers are due to fewer crashes as opposed to decreasing crash danger.
The five-year trend reflects the pattern already observed in overall crash data. In 2020, the U.S. recorded 35,935 fatal crashes and 39,007 deaths. By 2021, those figures were 39,785 crashes and 43,230 fatalities (the deadliest year in the dataset). Pandemic-era conditions are widely cited as contributing factors.
The gap between crashes and deaths was widest in 2021, when 3,445 more fatalities than the total number of fatal crashes were recorded. This suggests that crashes were not only more frequent but also marginally more likely to involve multiple fatalities.
Conditions gradually and marginally improved after 2021. Fatalities fell to 42,721 in 2022, 41,025 in 2023, and 39,254 in 2024. The crash-to-fatality gap also narrowed, reaching 2,957 in 2024, the lowest level recorded during the study period. But improvements were extremely modest overall.
Despite billions of dollars invested in infrastructure and vehicle safety, 2024 recorded only 247 fewer deaths than 2020. The persistence of a fatalities-per-crash ratio above 1.08 tells us that key contributors to severe crashes (high-speed rural roads, low seatbelt use in some areas, larger vehicles, and road design challenges) also persist.
The road risk factor varies throughout the year, as the following data confirms.
Danger Months On U.S. Roads
NHTSA data confirms that July through October is consistently the most dangerous traffic window of the year. Between 2020 and 2024, this period reported the highest number of fatal crashes.
October was the deadliest month overall, with 17,961 fatal crashes occurring across the five-year period. (February recorded the fewest fatal crashes (12,706), a differential of over 5,200 crashes.)
The July to October danger window is due to a number of factors. Summer travel increases traffic volume; road trips mean a higher number of fatigued drivers on highways; and shorter daylight hours in early fall very quickly worsen driver visibility while travel remains elevated.
Ultimately, the nation’s roads are most dangerous during the months when they’re used the most, and they’re especially dangerous when fall replaces summer, with drivers caught out year on year.
While heavy traffic, tired drivers, and changing seasons are clearly key issues, drivers are ultimately responsible for car crashes. And some very specific behavioral habits can be pinpointed as major crash factors.
The Driver Behaviors Behind Car Crashes
Between 2020 and 2024, three driver behaviors (speeding, alcohol-impaired driving, and distracted driving) contributed to 138,835 deaths on U.S. roads, covering 68% of all traffic fatalities during the period. That’s a six-figure fatality count due to preventable behaviors as opposed to unavoidable conditions.
Alcohol-impaired driving was the deadliest of the three factors and led to 63,069 fatalities, roughly 30% of traffic deaths during the five-year period. Its share remained remarkably consistent: from 30.1% in 2020 to 31.5% in 2021 and 2022 before a slight dip to 30.3% in 2024.
The consistency of alcohol-related crash fatality figures suggests that this factor remains a persistent public safety problem. That’s despite extensive enforcement (including increased DUI penalties and sobriety checkpoints), improved access to alternative transport options, and decades of public awareness campaigns.
Speeding led to 59,284 fatalities and consistently accounted for around 29% of traffic deaths during each year of the study period. Fatalities peaked in 2021 (12,498) before falling to 11,288 in 2024, yet the overall share of deaths linked to speeding scarcely changed. This consistency clearly confirms that high speed is a deeply embedded feature of American driving behavior despite varied interventions.
And distracted driving accounted for 16,482 fatalities, roughly 8% of annual deaths. Although this is a significant figure, it’s broadly taken as an undercount due to the difficulty of verifying distraction after a crash. Recording distraction usually relies on enforcement officer observation as opposed to phone records or vehicle data.
If we combine the fatalities caused by speeding, alcohol-impaired driving and distracted driving during the study period, four states emerge as disproportionately affected: New Mexico (which ranks highest in the country for distracted driving), Wyoming (first for speeding and third for drunk driving), Montana (very high counts for speeding and drunk driving) and Louisiana (the only Southern state that ranks in the top ten across all three categories).
Rising Fatality States Need Interventions
Between 2020 and 2024, the U.S. recorded 189,208 fatal traffic crashes. The fatal crash count rose sharply from 35,935 in 2020 to 39,785 in 2021; thereafter the numbers fell to 36,297 in 2024.
Despite this improvement, there was very little five-year net change, indicating limited progress even as improvements to vehicle safety and infrastructure were made.
Seasonal patterns were consistent throughout, with July through October producing the highest crash volumes and October the deadliest month overall.
Population-adjusted data reveals elevated risk in rural and Southern states. Mississippi ranks highest in fatal crash rates, followed by Wyoming, Arkansas, and New Mexico, all of which combine rural road networks, long travel distances, and limited emergency response options.
The broader top ten includes South Carolina, Montana, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Oklahoma: these states collectively reflect consistent infrastructure and access challenges that elevate per-capita risk beyond what raw totals indicate.
If we judge progress (between 2020 and 2024) by fatalities, very little has been made
Behavioral factors are also key when it comes to understanding crash trends. Combined, speeding, alcohol-impaired driving, and distracted driving account for roughly 68% of all road fatalities.
Alcohol remains the single largest issue (30%), followed closely by speeding (29%). And despite comparatively low figures, distracted driving numbers are almost certainly underestimated due to reporting limitations. With all three factors, fatality numbers have remained remarkably stable, which suggests entrenched behavioral problems.
Fatalities per crash have remained at a steady 1.08-1.09 level, indicating only a marginal improvement in crash severity. Overall, while total fatalities have slightly declined since 2021, the data confirms that persistent structural, behavioral, and geographic factors continue to drive high levels of preventable road deaths in the United States.
As such, rural networks may need a significantly higher level of attention regarding road safety. And the consequences of indulging poor and dangerous driver behavior may need to be much more serious to pre-empt a sadly steady fatality rate on our national roads.
A car accident can be a very difficult and traumatizing experience for you and your dependents. You may suffer severe injuries that sideline you for months, a time during which you may not be able to work and earn the money you need to pay your bills.
Welcome Law Group can help. We have more than 40 years of combined legal experience, and we’re one of the largest bilingual injury law firms in the region. Reach out to a car accident lawyer in Waterbury and arrange a free initial consultation with our team.
