Car Accident Statistics

Annually, there are more than 6 million car accidents with more than 3 million people being injured due to these accidents.There are over 40,000 deaths due to car accidents every year. Thought of a different way: Every 12 minutes, one person dies because of a car accident. Every 14 seconds, a car accident results in an injured victim.

Most car accidents could be avoided if only the drivers would drive more responsibly. About 40% of car accident fatalities occur because of a drunken driver. About 30% of the car accident fatalities can be attributed to driving above the speed limits and 33% and above because of reckless driving that causes the car to go off the road and result in an accident.

Most car "accidents" are not accidents as we typically interpret the word. A drunk driver made a number of decisions BEFORE the accident. That driver CHOSE to drink, CHOSE to drink in excess, CHOSE to get behind the wheel, CHOSE to drive while impaired. Thus, a car "accident" may actually be the result of a series of CHOICES, bad ones, that were made by the at-fault driver.

In the age group of 1 to 30 years, the leading cause of death is due to a car accident.

According to the car accident statistics released by the United States Department of Transportation’s (USDOT’s) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there were almost 43,000 deaths in 2002 because of car accidents. In 2002, there were around 6,316,000 car accidents in the US, with these causing about 2.9 million injuries.

More than 25% of all car drivers were involved in car accidents in a five year period.

ADDITIONAL FACT: In more than half of all car accident fatalities, the deceased were found not to be wearing their seat belts at the time of the crash. Even with seat belts being mandatory, a vast majority of people choose to disregard this safety precaution and end up losing their lives because of it.

Many car accidents are caused by people talking to other passengers while driving, and others due to drivers playing with the radio while driving. A large percentage is because of eating or drinking while driving, and 25% of car accidents are caused due to talking on the mobile phone while at the wheel of the car. These car accident statistics are sad enough on their own, the saddest part being that they could have easily been avoided had drivers been paying more attention to driving and less to other activities.