Cities with the highest rate of motor vehicle fatalities
The last few years saw a startling trend on America's roads. The number of car crash fatalities in 2021 and 2022 reached levels the country hadn't seen in 15 years. But that pattern may be changing. According to an April 2024 report released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an estimated 40,990 people died in traffic accidents in 2023, as compared to 42,514 the year prior. It's the second straight year that car crash fatalities overall have gone down.
Though the 3.6% drop from 2022 to 2023 is significant, authorities warn that these numbers are no cause for celebration. Upon release of the report, the deputy administrator of the NHTSA told AP that distracted drivers are often to blame for driving fatalities—roughly 3,300 of traffic deaths in 2022 were caused by drivers not paying enough attention to the road.
Unfortunately, drivers today are much more distracted than you might think. In April 2024, Nationwide released new data showing that the average driver looks away from the road upward of 12 times per day. Eating ranked as the #1 distraction, and making work phone calls came in second.
As summer kicks off, it's also worth noting that the season can be an especially deadly time for American drivers and their passengers. A May 2024 analysis from USA Today found that in some states, the number of deadly car accidents in June, July, and August has increased by almost 40%.
These numbers do vary in greatly in different areas of the country. To see how they compare, Stacker used Department of Transportation data to rank the 50 cities with the highest motor vehicle crash fatality rates in 2020 and broke ties by the total number of fatalities. Only cities with a population of at least 150,000 were considered.
Many of the cities that rank among the most deadly are located in the southern U.S. Read on to see if your city made the list.
