The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that U.S. traffic deaths fell 6.7% to 36,640 in 2025, even as Americans drove 0.9% more miles (29.8 billion), producing a fatality rate of 1.10 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles—the lowest since 2014.
The decline is the fourth consecutive annual reduction following pandemic-era spikes that reached 39,007 deaths in 2020 and 43,230 deaths in 2021. NHTSA data show year-over-year decreases of 1.2% in 2022, 4.0% in 2023 and 4.3% in 2024, and 15 straight quarters of falling road deaths since Q2 2022.
Despite the improvement, the 2025 total remains slightly above the 2019 pre-pandemic figure of 36,355, indicating U.S. traffic deaths have not fully returned to pre-2020 levels. NHTSA’s figures leave open how driving behavior, traffic volume and economic conditions will affect future trends.
This summary is based on coverage by Jalopnik.
Read the full article at Jalopnik.
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