Early Estimates of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities And Fatality Rate by Sub-Categories in 2021

"NHTSA has released a companion report presenting early estimates of traffic fatalities and fatality rates in 2021 (Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2021, Report No.DOT HS 813 283). That report shows the increased trend in fatalities in 2020 has continued into 2021, and the increased trend in fatality rate per 100 million VMT in 2020 continued into the first quarter of 2021 but decreased during the second, third, and the fourth quarters of 2021. This NHTSA note is being issued after conducting a special analysis of the fatalities and the fatality rates per 100 million VMT by key sub-categories in 2021. The analysis is based on ratio adjusted estimates of 2021 fatal crash data coded thus far into NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), as described in the Data and Methodology section.

For the whole of 2021, a statistical projection of traffic fatalities shows an increase of about 10.5 percent as compared to reported fatalities in 2020. Some categories showed large shifts in fatalities and fatality rates in a given month, compared to the corresponding month in 2020. For instance, the share of fatalities on urban roads went from 57 percent in March 2020 to 62 percent in March 2021, a 5-percentagepoint increase. Correspondingly, the total fatalities (fatality counts) on urban roads increased from 21,940 in 2020 to 25,411 in 2021, a 16-percent increase. In summary, the traffic fatalities (fatality counts) in the following categories showed relatively large increases in 2021 as compared to 2020..."
Traffic fatalities