US traffic deaths fell 3.8% in 2024, lowest number since 2020

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. traffic deaths fell 3.8% in 2024 to 39,345, the lowest number since 2020, but fatalities on American roads remained above pre-COVID levels, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Tuesday.

Last year marks the first time since 2020 that annual deaths involving vehicles dropped below 40,000 but they are still drastically higher than the 36,355 killed in 2019, the agency said as it released preliminary data.

Final 2023 figures showed the number of bicyclists killed increased 4.4% to 1,166, the most since at least 1980, the NHTSA said. The number injured rose 8.2% to nearly 50,000.

“It’s encouraging to see that traffic fatalities are continuing to fall from their COVID pandemic highs,” NHTSA Chief Counsel Peter Simshauser said.

“Total road fatalities, however, remain significantly higher than a decade ago, and America’s traffic fatality rate remains high relative to many peer nations.”

In 2022, the number of pedestrians killed in the U.S. rose 0.7% to 7,522, the most since 1981. That number declined 3.7% in 2023 to 7,314, NHTSA said.

The number of people injured in motor vehicle crashes rose 2.5% to nearly 2.2 million in 2023.

U.S. traffic deaths jumped 10.8% in 2021 to 43,230, the most in a single year since 2005. The number of pedestrians and cyclists killed on American roads rose to the highest number in more than four decades.

As U.S. roads became less crowded during the pandemic, some motorists perceived police as less likely to issue tickets, experts said, resulting in riskier driving.

The 2024 fatality rate dropped to 1.20 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled — the lowest since 2019, but still above the 1.13 average rate in the seven years before COVID.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Richard Chang)