US Cities With the Most Fatal Car Accidents in 2023 (NHTSA Data)

The Fatality Analysis Reporting System is NHTSA's database of every motor vehicle crash on a public road in the United States in which someone died within 30 days. Each state reports its fatal crashes with a standard set of fields, including the city where the crash occurred as coded by the state. The figures on this page are from the 2023 final release, grouped by city, with deaths and fatal crashes counted separately because one crash can kill more than one person.

Two limits matter. FARS does not include injury crashes, which outnumber fatal crashes by a wide margin; a city with many fatal crashes almost certainly has many more injury crashes, but this data cannot count them. And city coding is imperfect: Georgia reported 384 deaths with the city field marked not reported, New York City appears under several names, and some suburban crashes are coded to the nearest municipality. The rankings below exclude the uncoded entries and should be read as close rather than exact.

The counts are absolute. A city of four million will have more fatal crashes than a city of 400,000 even if its roads are safer per mile driven. The cities that stand out are the ones whose fatal crash count is far above what their population would predict.

Deaths, then fatal crashes, from FARS 2023, by city as coded in the data.

• Los Angeles, California: 341 deaths in 321 fatal crashes.
• Phoenix, Arizona: 311 deaths in 302 fatal crashes.
• Houston, Texas: 297 deaths in 279 fatal crashes.
• Memphis, Tennessee: 244 deaths in 220 fatal crashes.
• Dallas, Texas: 207 deaths in 198 fatal crashes.
• San Antonio, Texas: 178 deaths in 173 fatal crashes.
• Chicago, Illinois: 167 deaths in 159 fatal crashes.
• Jacksonville, Florida: 163 deaths in 151 fatal crashes.
• Tucson, Arizona: 148 deaths in 139 fatal crashes.
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 135 deaths in 128 fatal crashes.
• Detroit, Michigan: 132 deaths in 124 fatal crashes.
• Indianapolis, Indiana: 120 deaths in 114 fatal crashes.
• Louisville, Kentucky: 118 deaths in 114 fatal crashes.
• Fort Worth, Texas: 118 deaths in 108 fatal crashes.
• New York City, New York: 113 deaths in 109 fatal crashes coded to the city name, with additional borough-coded crashes not included.
• Nashville, Tennessee: 110 deaths in 100 fatal crashes.
• Albuquerque, New Mexico: 109 deaths in 106 fatal crashes.
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: 99 deaths in 93 fatal crashes.
• Kansas City, Missouri: 98 deaths in 86 fatal crashes.
• Columbus, Ohio: 98 deaths in 89 fatal crashes.
• San Diego, California: 97 deaths in 93 fatal crashes.
• Austin, Texas: 94 deaths in 90 fatal crashes.
• Charlotte, North Carolina: 89 deaths in 84 fatal crashes.
• Atlanta, Georgia: 84 deaths in 80 fatal crashes, with a further 384 Georgia deaths coded without a city.
• El Paso, Texas: 84 deaths in 74 fatal crashes.

Memphis is the clearest case. With a population around 620,000, it recorded 244 deaths, more than Chicago, Philadelphia or New York City, and about the same as Dallas, a city twice its size. Its deadliest roads in the data are South Third Street, with 18 fatal crashes, Lamar Avenue with 11, and the I-240 loop with 10. Tennessee's one-year deadline for injury claims makes the legal timeline in Memphis as unforgiving as the roads.

Albuquerque, Tucson and Jacksonville also rank well above their population. Albuquerque's 109 deaths included 55 fatal crashes involving a pedestrian or cyclist, more than half of the total, concentrated on I-25, I-40 and Central Avenue. Tucson's 148 deaths included 71 intersection-related fatal crashes, about half of its total and among the highest intersection shares in the top 25, alongside Milwaukee and Philadelphia. Jacksonville's crashes cluster on I-295, I-95 and US-1.

At the other end, New York City and Chicago have far fewer deaths per resident than the sunbelt cities, a pattern consistent with lower speeds, more transit use and denser street grids. Los Angeles leads the raw count but its 168 pedestrian and cyclist fatal crashes, more than half of its total, point to a different problem than the freeway crashes that dominate in Houston and Dallas.

Darkness is the strongest common factor. In all 25 cities, more than half of fatal crashes happened in dark conditions, lighted or not. Fort Worth, at 83 of 108, El Paso at 56 of 74, and Los Angeles at 242 of 321 are the highest shares; Columbus and Tucson, at just over half, are the lowest. Night driving combines speed, impairment and poor pedestrian visibility, and the fatal crash data reflects all three.

Pedestrians and cyclists account for a large share in the densest cities and the ones built around wide arterials. More than half of fatal crashes in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Albuquerque and Austin involved a person not in a vehicle; San Antonio and San Diego were close to half. In FARS coding, the most common first harmful event in every one of the 25 cities was something other than a collision with another moving vehicle, meaning a pedestrian, a fixed object or a rollover.

Intersections matter more in some cities than others. Milwaukee, Tucson, Philadelphia, Chicago and Columbus had the highest shares of intersection-related fatal crashes, consistent with their grid layouts and wide signalized arterials. Houston, Fort Worth, Nashville and Austin had the lowest, with fatal crashes concentrated instead on interstates and frontage roads.

Suppose two people are injured in similar crashes on the same night: one on Lamar Avenue in Memphis, the other on Roosevelt Boulevard in Philadelphia. Both were hit by a driver who ran a red light, both suffered a fractured arm with $30,000 in medical bills, and both were found by police to have been driving a few miles over the limit.

In Memphis, Tennessee's modified comparative negligence rule reduces the recovery by the injured person's share of fault, and the deadline to sue is one year from the crash. The claim must be resolved or filed within twelve months, while the injured person is still treating. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania's rule also reduces for shared fault, but the deadline is two years, and if the injured person chose the limited tort option on their own auto policy, a pain and suffering claim requires a serious injury. Neither state is no-fault in the full sense, but Pennsylvania's tort election changes what can be claimed.

Same crash, same injury, different timeline and different damages. The city tells you which state's rules apply, and the state rules are the whole framework. All details in this example are hypothetical.

The steps after a crash are the same everywhere; the deadlines and fault rules are not.

• Get the police report and note the exact road and intersection; in many of these cities the same corridors appear year after year, and a history of crashes at the same location can support a claim against the road authority.
• Find your state's filing deadline immediately; it is one year in Tennessee and Kentucky, two in Texas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Illinois, three in New York, North Carolina, New Mexico and Michigan.
• Check whether your state is no-fault, which changes who pays first and whether a pain and suffering claim is possible; Florida, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania's limited tort option all restrict it.
• If a pedestrian or cyclist was involved, or the crash was at night, preserve lighting and visibility evidence; these are the fault arguments insurers raise.
• If the crash was on a road with a known history of fatal crashes, ask an attorney about a notice-of-claim deadline for a government defendant, which can be as short as a few months.
• Report to your own insurer the same day and avoid recorded statements to the other driver's insurer until the injury is understood.

The top 25 cities fall in 14 states with different rules. Texas, with five cities on the list, is a modified comparative negligence state with a 51 percent bar and a two-year deadline. Arizona and California, with four cities between them, use pure comparative negligence, so an injured person recovers even if mostly at fault, reduced by their share. Tennessee, with Memphis and Nashville, and Kentucky, with Louisville, have one-year deadlines, the shortest in the country.

Florida and Michigan are no-fault states, so in Jacksonville and Detroit, the injured person's own personal injury protection pays first and a claim against the at-fault driver for pain and suffering requires meeting a threshold. Michigan's system also sharply limits vehicle damage claims against the other driver. Pennsylvania offers drivers a limited tort option that restricts pain and suffering claims unless the injury is serious. New York is a no-fault state with a serious injury threshold and a three-year deadline.

North Carolina, home of Charlotte, is one of the four contributory negligence states, along with Alabama, Maryland and Virginia, where any fault on the injured person's part can bar recovery entirely. A Charlotte crash with disputed fault is therefore a very different claim from an otherwise identical crash in Atlanta, where Georgia's modified comparative rule applies.

A fatal crash statistic is a family's loss, and a serious injury on one of these roads is a claim governed by rules that vary from city to city because they vary from state to state. The data above tells you where the crashes are; it does not tell you what any one claim is worth, which depends on the injury, the fault evidence, the coverage and the state. Most personal injury attorneys work on contingency.

Ask Legal Matters is a free claim-review request service, not a law firm. Requests may be shared with independent attorneys and legal services partners who handle inquiries in your state, and an attorney must evaluate the facts before anyone can say whether a claim exists. If you or a family member were hurt in a crash in any of these cities, you can request a free claim review.

• Car Accident Claims in the United States: The Complete Guide
• Pedestrian Accident Claims: Rights, Fault and Compensation
• Wrongful Death Claims: Who Can File, Deadlines and Damages
• At Fault in a Car Accident? Comparative Negligence Explained
• What Is the Average Car Accident Settlement? What Sets the Value
• Back and Neck Injury Settlement After a Car Accident: Factors
• Bicycle Accident Claim: Hit by a Car While Riding
• Can I Sue for a Slip and Fall? Premises Liability Explained
• Can I Sue My Employer for a Work Injury? Workers' Comp vs Lawsuit

Need local rules? Choose your state from the injury law guides hub or read the statute of limitations by state.