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California Personal Injury Blog
car accident statistics

California Car Accident Facts & Statistics (2024)

By Andrew Mendlin
Mar 05, 2024
Car Accidents
car accident statistics

If you’re looking for facts and statistics about California accidents, you’ve come to the right place. In this post, we’ve gathered facts and statistics about California car accidents from five (5) agencies including:

  1. California DMV
  2. National Highway and Safety Administration
  3. California Office of Traffic Safety
  4. California Emergency Medical Services Information System
  5. National Safety Council

Let’s begin.

1. California DMV

According to the most recent release of numbers from the California DMV,

  • California has nearly 36 million registered drivers.
  • In the same reporting year, the National Traffic Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows that California had 4,285 fatalities, which was an increase from the previous year.
  • Unfortunately, almost half of those were pedestrians, cyclists, and other non-occupants.
  • The California Office of Traffic Safety (COTS) states that 37% of motorcycle deaths were related to not wearing a helmet.
  • California was second only to Texas in fatality-involved accidents, with Florida following just behind.

2. National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA): Annual Report

The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) provides a full annual report on car accident statistics by state. It has grant funding for various safety initiatives, car seat safety information, and recall information for cars and child restraints.

The highlights of the most recent California NHTSA annual report are:

  • Traffic fatalities increased a little over 3% from the previous year, for a total of 3,847.
  • Alcohol-related fatalities increased 20% from the previous year, for a total of 1,159.
  • Drug-impaired fatalities are those whose victims tested positive for legal and illegal drugs. This number increased by almost 8% from the previous year.
  • The number of fatalities from unrestrained passengers also increased by nearly 20% from the previous year, resulting in 756 deaths.
  • Both total motorcycle fatalities and motorcycle fatalities in riders not wearing a helmet increased by 9.8% and 25%, respectively, from the previous year, contributing 539 deaths to the overall total.
  • Teenage driver deaths increased by about 23% from the previous reporting year.
  • Pedestrian and bicycle fatalities both saw a decrease of 2.5% and 9.8%, respectively. However, this number still contributed over 1,000 deaths to the total count.

Part of the NHTSA website hosts information from the National Center for Statistics and Analysis, which shows crash statistics and recent safety publications. This database is also national, so while some information pertains to national data or may include accident stats in California, it may also include research or news from other parts of the country.

Car Accident Seatbelt Facts

One piece of information on this site that you may not see as much detail on in the other sources mentioned is seatbelt use. Nationwide, about 92% of passengers involved in accidents were wearing their seatbelts, compared to about 96% of people in the Western United States.

These high numbers of seatbelt usage are trending with lower levels of unrestrained deaths.

3. California Office of Traffic Safety (COTS)

The California Office of Traffic Safety (COTS) is another government resource that can provide extensive data on accident numbers. On the website, you can see detailed statistics broken down by county. This information also includes the city’s ranking compared to similarly sized cities.

  • Sacramento is the lowest-scoring county in its group at 1/15. This means that its total of 4,296 fatal crashes for the reporting year is the highest number of any other comparable cities in California.
  • However, Sacramento did have the second-to-lowest number of DUI arrests at 916.

The website can also connect you to other reliable data sources in its traffic safety data tab. This list includes accident information from the lens of different community initiatives in place.

4. California Emergency Medical Services Information System (CEMSIS)

  • 32% of all emergency calls involved a motor vehicle crash.

5. National Safety Council (NSC)

The National Safety Council (NSC) is a nonprofit safety advocate. The NSC calculates data using slightly different measures from NHTSA, giving a different perspective. This organization shows national data sets, unlike COTS, which is California-specific. However, you can pull certain types of data by state.

  • The NSC website shows that 4,285 motor vehicle deaths occurred in California in the most recent reporting year.
  • 4,986 motor vehicle deaths of California residents in the country