NHTSA FARS final release
Traffic Fatalities by Age Group: 2015 to 2024 FARS Trends
39,254 people died in U.S. traffic crashes in 2024. Compare the final NHTSA FARS age distribution with 2015, using reproducible person-file aggregates.
- 39,254
- 2024 fatalities
- 25-34
- largest age group
- +10.6%
- change since 2015
This analysis is rebuilt from 10 annual U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration final person files. The official 2024 archive used here was last modified April 1, 2026. Review the data methodology or browse the broader road-safety research collection.
Answer in brief
The 25-34 group recorded the most fatalities in 2024, at 6,921. Across all age groups, fatalities moved from 35,484 in 2015 to 39,254 in 2024, a 10.6% increase. The largest absolute group increase was among people aged 35-44, up 1,545 deaths from 2015.
Traffic fatalities by age group, 2024
Absolute fatality count; final national FARS person file
What changed between 2015 and 2024?
| Age | 2015 | 2024 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25-34 | 6,344 | 6,921 | +577 |
| 35-44 | 4,707 | 6,252 | +1,545 |
| 55-64 | 4,856 | 5,246 | +390 |
| 45-54 | 5,304 | 4,963 | -341 |
| 65-74 | 3,140 | 4,128 | +988 |
| 75+ | 3,097 | 3,891 | +794 |
| 16-20 | 3,147 | 3,276 | +129 |
| 21-24 | 3,464 | 3,146 | -318 |
| Under 16 | 1,345 | 1,235 | -110 |
| Unknown | 80 | 196 | +116 |
Methodology and limits
PlainRoadSafety rebuilds this comparison from the fatal-person rows in NHTSA's final annual
FARS national CSV releases. A row is counted when INJ_SEV=4; age is grouped into
the bands shown above, and unknown or unavailable ages remain visible as “Unknown.” The
aggregate is checked so the age-band sum equals the fatal-person total for every source year.
These are absolute counts, not rates. They do not adjust for population size, licensed-driver counts, miles travelled, travel time, or differences in exposure. A change in an age group's count therefore does not by itself identify a cause or show that driving became safer or more dangerous for an individual in that group.
For geographic context, compare the portal's state profiles and deadliest-state ranking; those surfaces use explicit population and exposure denominators rather than treating this national age distribution as a state-level risk measure.
Source: NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), final national person files, 2015–2024 Fatal-person rows only; age-group totals are recomputed from the official annual CSV files.