NHTSA Statistics For Traffic Accidents for 2018-2019

Each year the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gathers and publishes statistics on traffic accidents. As a personal injury firm, it’s important to keep track of these statistics in order to be more informed and, thus, better able to advise clients.

As represented in the table, in 2018 there were almost 7 million traffic crashes in the US. Roughly, 1.9 million injuries resulted from those accidents with 33,654 fatalities. Based on these statistics, it stands to reason that 1.9 million crashes resulted in no injuries or damage.

The following table breaks down the cause of accidents. This is interesting because many people would believe that distract driving is the number one cause of accidents. While the % of distracted driving causing accidents is high at 5.2%, speeding easily beats that number at 16.7%. However, even more interesting is the fact that a whopping 31.1% of accidents have an unknown cause. 17.8% of accident have the cause as “none reported.” This shows an inherent blind spot in the statistics. This means that almost 50% of the causes for accident are unknown/unreported.

No matter how reliable these statistics are, they shine a light into the nature of motor vehicle accidents in the US. They help paint a picture of how car accidents, motorcycle accidents, and motor vehicle accidents in general occur. If you’re more interested in what statistics the NHTSA has compiled check out their website here to see everything they’ve compiled over the past 10-11 years.