Fatal car crashes in Syracuse, NY: deadliest roads, 2020-2024

From 2020 through 2024, federal crash records list 57 fatal crashes inside Syracuse, in which 59 people died. The roads with the most were I-81 with 8 fatal crashes, Salina St (US-11) with 5 and James St (State Route 290) with 3.

Filing deadline, fault rule, insurance and the court for a crash in Syracuse: Syracuse, NY injury guide.

NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), the federal record of crashes on public roads in which someone died, lists 57 fatal crashes in Syracuse, New York, from 2020 through 2024, with 59 people killed. The 2020 to 2023 counts are drawn from NHTSA's Final Files, while 2024 rests on its Annual Report File, a first release that may be revised once the final version is published.

Syracuse recorded 12 fatal crashes in 2020, 13 in 2021, 5 in 2022, 14 in 2023 and 13 in 2024, with 12, 15, 5, 14 and 13 deaths. The 2022 figure is far below the others, and the count returned to its earlier level the next year. Only 2021 had more deaths than crashes, so it is the one year in which at least one crash killed more than one person; in every other year, each fatal crash took one life.

Onondaga County, where all 57 of the city's fatal crashes were recorded, had 130 fatal crashes and 135 deaths over the five years. Syracuse's share is 44 percent of each, which leaves 73 crashes and 76 deaths in the rest of the county. Statewide, FARS counts 5,238 fatal crashes and 5,601 deaths in New York, and Syracuse's 57 crashes are about 1 percent of that total.

I-81 has the most fatal crashes in Syracuse's table: 8 from 2020 through 2024, 14 percent of the city's crashes, with 8 deaths and the latest in 2024. Salina St (US-11) is second with 5 crashes and 5 deaths, also most recently in 2024, so the lead is 3 crashes. James St (State Route 290) and Fayette St follow with 3 fatal crashes each; those on James St (State Route 290) killed 4 people and those on Fayette St killed 3.

Six rows had 2 fatal crashes and 2 deaths each: Almond St, Court St (State Route 298), Genesee St (US-5), Harrison St, I-690 and Ramp (I-690). The table is recent, since eight of its ten rows had a fatal crash in 2024, and only I-690 and Ramp (I-690) had their latest in 2023. Together the ten rows hold 31 of the 57 fatal crashes, 54 percent, and 32 of the 59 deaths, which leaves 26 crashes on other roads. The counts show where people died, not which road is riskier or who caused any crash.

Syracuse's toll falls heavily on people outside vehicles. Of the 59 people killed, 19 were pedestrians, 32 percent, and 6 were bicyclists, 10 percent; 1 more was on a non-motorized personal conveyance, a FARS category kept separate from walking and cycling. Together, 26 of the dead, 44 percent, were outside any vehicle. Counted by crash, 26 of the 57, or 46 percent, involved a pedestrian, cyclist or other person outside a vehicle.

The other 33 of the 59 dead were in or on vehicles in transport: 27 drivers and 6 passengers. Twelve of them were on a motorcycle or moped, 20 percent of all deaths; FARS counts riders within the driver and passenger figures. For someone struck on foot or on a bike, a claim usually turns on the crossing, the signal, the street lighting and what the driver could have seen; for a rider, it often turns on whether another driver saw the motorcycle in time.

Night, and especially the hours after midnight, defines Syracuse's record. The block from midnight to 6 a.m. had 20 fatal crashes, 35 percent, more than any other, and 6 p.m. to midnight had 18, so exactly two of every three crashes happened between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. Noon to 6 p.m. had 14 and the morning only 5. By light, 36 crashes happened after dark, 31 of them on lighted streets and 5 on unlit roads; 19 happened in daylight and 2 at dusk.

Sunday had 14 fatal crashes, 25 percent of the total, and Friday only 4; Monday had 9, Saturday, Tuesday and Wednesday 8 each and Thursday 6. The weather was clear for 34 crashes, cloudy for 15 and rainy for 7, with 1 not reported. FARS coded 54 crashes as urban and 3 as rural, and none happened in a work zone. Single-vehicle crashes numbered 39, with 13 involving two vehicles and 5 involving three or more.

Most crashes did not begin with two vehicles colliding. In 46 of the 57, 81 percent, the first harmful event, the first event that caused injury or damage, was something other than a collision with another motor vehicle in transport: a pedestrian was struck first in 18 and a cyclist in 6, a utility pole or light support (4), a guardrail face (3) or a tree (3) in others, and 4 began with a rollover. Only 11 began as collisions between vehicles in transport, 8 of them angle crashes. Twenty-seven crashes were at or related to an intersection.

This example is invented, with round numbers that only show how New York's rules fit together. Suppose you are stopped at a red light on a lighted Syracuse street at 1 a.m. when a car behind you fails to stop and hits yours. You suffer a neck injury that needs surgery and miss three months of work. Because New York is a no-fault state, your own personal injury protection (PIP) coverage generally pays initial medical bills and part of lost wages first, whoever caused the crash.

A claim against the other driver for pain and suffering is generally allowed only when the injury meets New York's tort threshold, which state law defines; assume yours does. The other insurer argues that your brake lights were out and puts 20 percent of the fault on you. Under pure comparative negligence, you can recover damages even if you were mostly at fault, but your award is reduced by your percentage of fault: a $90,000 valuation becomes $72,000, and even at 60 percent fault you would still recover $36,000.

Then comes the question of payment. If the other driver bought only New York's minimum liability coverage, 25/50/10, the policy covers up to $25,000 for one person's injuries, $50,000 for everyone hurt in the crash and $10,000 for property damage. That would leave $47,000 of your $72,000 unpaid by that policy, and whether another source covers it depends on the policies involved, which an attorney would review. The general deadline for the lawsuit would be three years from the injury (N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 214(5)).

In New York, filing a crash report is the driver's own job. Each driver in a crash that kills or injures anyone, or that damages any one person's property by more than $1,000, the driver's own property included, must send a Report of Motor Vehicle Crash (MV-104) to the DMV within 10 days, online or by mail (N.Y. Vehicle and Traffic Law § 605). A crash with an injury or death also has to be reported to the police right away, or, if no officer is nearby, as soon as the driver is physically able, to the nearest police station or judicial officer (VTL § 600).

• Keep a copy of your MV-104 and note the officer's name and the report number; the DMV also handles requests for copies of crash reports.
• For a pedestrian or cyclist, photograph the crossing, the signal and the street lighting at the same hour of night; 31 of Syracuse's fatal crashes happened after dark on lighted streets.
• Ask nearby homes and businesses to save any camera footage before it is recorded over.
• Tell your own insurer promptly, since New York's no-fault coverage generally pays first, and keep every medical bill and record.
• When a city or county vehicle or worker may be involved, the 90-day notice of claim under Gen. Mun. Law § 50-e is the first date to put in front of an attorney.

A lawsuit over a Syracuse crash is typically filed in the Onondaga County Supreme Court, which in New York is a trial court despite its name; an attorney confirms the right court for a given case. New York generally allows three years from the injury to start a personal injury lawsuit (N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 214(5)). Talks with an insurer can run for months, so the date is worth noting early.

Municipal claims follow a different track. Claims against New York municipalities require a notice of claim within 90 days (Gen. Mun. Law § 50-e), and the deadline for then suing the municipality is set separately by state law, so a crash involving a city or county vehicle or employee calls for an early check of both dates. A crash at work can also bring in workers' compensation through the New York Workers' Compensation Board, with notice to the employer within 30 days and a claim generally within two years.

New York pairs pure comparative negligence with no-fault insurance, and both shape the example. Because the fault rule only reduces an award, the stopped driver would still collect 40 percent of the damages at 60 percent fault. Where a 51 percent bar applies, a 60 percent share ends the claim, and in contributory negligence states such as Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia, even a small share of fault can generally bar recovery. The same rear-end crash could end three different ways depending on the state.

No-fault is the other half. Like Florida, Michigan and New Jersey, New York starts with each injured person's own coverage, whoever caused the crash, and a pain-and-suffering claim against the other driver is generally allowed only when the injury meets New York's tort threshold, which state law defines. In most at-fault states, the claim instead runs against the at-fault driver's liability insurer from the start. Deadlines differ too: Tennessee allows one year for most injury claims, against New York's three.

Ask Legal Matters is a personal injury lead-generation service that collects free case review requests from injured people in the United States and shares them with independent attorneys and law firms. It is not a law firm and does not give legal advice. Requests may be shared with independent attorneys and legal services partners who handle inquiries in your state. Most personal injury attorneys work on contingency, and an attorney must evaluate the facts before anyone can say whether a claim exists. If you were hurt in a crash in Syracuse, on foot, on a bike or in a vehicle, you can request a free case review.

• What do federal records show about fatal car crashes in Brooklyn?
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• What should you do after a car accident?

More on this type of claim: Car accidents: evidence, deadlines and when to ask an attorney.

• Syracuse, New York: local injury guide, court and deadlines
• Car Accident Claims in the United States: The Complete Guide
• Pedestrian Accident Claims: Rights, Fault and Compensation

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