FARS Research

Road Safety Research

Original analyses built directly on NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System. Each study queries the live database, states its method, and links its sources so you can check the numbers yourself.

What questions does this research answer?

Per Mile or Per Person? Why State Rankings Disagree

Deaths per 100,000 residents and deaths per 100 million vehicle-miles rank states very differently. We show where the two measures diverge and why.

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The Rural Road Paradox: Fewer Drivers, More Deaths

Urban fatalities overtook rural ones between 2015 and 2023, yet rural roads stay far deadlier per mile driven. We trace the shift.

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America's Pedestrian Death Surge, 2010 to 2023

Pedestrian deaths rose about 70 percent since 2010, and their share of all road deaths climbed from 13.0 to 17.9 percent.

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Where Alcohol Drives the Death Toll

In Montana, 43.5 percent of road deaths involve an alcohol-impaired driver, more than double the national 18.8 percent. We map the impaired-driving share state by state.

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Traffic Fatalities by Age Group: 2015 to 2023

Which age groups carry the heaviest toll, and how the distribution shifted across nine years of FARS records.

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