Methodology
Figures on this site come from one source: the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), calendar year 2024.
- Source page: https://www.nhtsa.gov/research-data/fatality-analysis-reporting-system-fars
- File used: FARS2024NationalCSV.zip / accident.csv (accident-level table; 36,297 fatal crashes)
- County names: U.S. Census Bureau, national_county2020.txt
- Retrieved: 2026-11-09
- Terms: federal government data; see NHTSA Terms of Use. The NHTSA logo is not used here.
Status of the 2024 data: first release, not final
First release of the 2024 FARS annual file (NHTSA release notes dated 2026-04-01). Not a Final File: NHTSA may revise it in later releases. The release notes inside NHTSA's 2024 download package say: "This is the first release of the 2024 FARS annual file" (dated 04/01/2026). NHTSA's FARS Encyclopedia labels the 2024 figures "based on FARS data publication, 1st release". NHTSA's file release versions page distinguishes Final files from annual files for earlier years. Until NHTSA issues a Final File for 2024, treat these counts as subject to revision.
- Download (annual file): https://static.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/downloads/FARS/2024/National/FARS2024NationalCSV.zip
- FARS Encyclopedia: https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
- File release versions: https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Common/FileVersions.html
- Analytical User's Manual: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813794
What FARS counts
FARS includes only crashes in which at least one person died within 30 days. It excludes crashes with injuries only or property damage only, so it says nothing about how many crashes happen overall. "Fatal crashes" is the number of such crashes; "deaths" is the number of people who died in them.
How the numbers are built
We count rows of the accident table by state and county code (and sum the fatalities column). Counties come from the Census 2020 county list; a county with no row has zero fatal crashes. State totals include every crash row. A few crashes carry a county code that is not on the Census list; they count toward the state but not any county.
Which pages exist
A county gets its own page only if it had at least 3 fatal crashes in 2024. Every county, including those with zero, one or two, is listed with its count on the state's counties page. Counties with fewer than 10 fatal crashes are marked "small count" because one year of data is noisy.
Rankings and comparisons
Ranks are by raw deaths among the 50 states and the District of Columbia (51 areas; DC is not a state). "Bordering states" share a land border; states that touch only at a corner are not counted. Alaska and Hawaii have no land neighbors, so they are compared with the two states ranked just above and below.
Limits
Counts are raw and are not adjusted for population, vehicle miles or road type. A single year is noisy, especially for small counties. The 2024 file is a first release and later releases may revise it.