What the Data Shows

Weather-Related was identified as a contributing factor in 83,147 US road fatalities between 2015 and 2023, according to NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System. That total represents 23.8% of every traffic death logged nationwide during the same reporting window — a share large enough that changes in this single factor visibly move the national road-safety headline. In the most recent year on record (2023), 8,994 fatal crashes involved this cause, anchoring the category's persistent weight in US traffic deaths.

The trend line have remained relatively stable over the reporting period. In raw counts, 2015 saw 9,980 fatalities attributed to weather-related, compared with 8,994 in 2023. A critical caveat applies to every cause page on this site: FARS contributing-factor codes are not mutually exclusive. A single fatal crash can be tagged simultaneously with alcohol impairment, excessive speed, lack of restraint, and nighttime conditions, so percentages across all cause categories deliberately sum to more than 100%. The correct read is "share of fatalities where this factor was involved," not "share of fatalities uniquely caused by this factor."

The data itself comes from a census — not a sample — of fatal motor vehicle crashes on US public roads, maintained by NHTSA and sourced from police crash reports, death certificates, and state highway agencies. That makes FARS the authoritative reference for US road fatality research, and it means the numbers on this page represent actual deaths recorded in 2015–2023, not projections. Readers using this data for policy or journalism should combine the weather-related figures with state-level pages for geographic context and with the methodology notes below for definitions of how each contributing factor is coded. All information is provided for research and informational purposes only.