Early Estimates of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities and Fatality Rate by Sub-Categories Through June 2020

This special supplementary report has been issued by NHTSA to take a closer look into the trends of monthly traffic fatalities and fatality rates by various sub-categories such as age, land use, and roadway function class through June of 2020 and making a comparison to the corresponding month of 2019. Changes in 2020 have been primarily due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic stay-at-home or shelter-in-place measures. While the stay-at-home orders started mid-March, April was the first full month of stay-at-home measures in place across the Nation. Some States began reopening in some way in May, and almost all States partially reopened by June. Some sub-categories showed large shifts in fatalities and fatality rates for a given month, compared to the same month of 2019. For instance, the share of fatalities in rural areas went from 43% in April 2019 to 47% in April 2020, a 4-percentage-point increase. The sole category that decreased by 4 percentage points or more was older people 65 and older (March, April, and June). In summary this presents a picture in which the traffic fatalities during April to June 2020 were more rural, involved more people 16 to 24 years old, were associated with risk-taking behaviors such as riding without a seat belt, and involved rollovers and ejections (which occur more often at high speeds and when occupants are unrestrained). In addition, the strikingly increasing trend of the total fatality rate per 100 M VMT from March to June 2020, is strongly driven by the fatality rate per 100 M VMT on the rural local/collector, arterial, and interstate roadways.

• Record URL:
  • https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813054
• Corporate Authors:

  National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Publication Date: 2020-12

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Tables;
• Pagination: 9p
• Serial:
  • Traffic Safety Facts - Crash Stats
  • Publisher: National Center for Statistics and Analysis
• Publication flags:

  Open Access (libre)

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Behavior; COVID-19; Crash data; Fatalities; Public health
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01762191
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: DOT HS 813 054
• Files: HSL, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Jan 11 2021 5:37PM