Georgia Car Accident Statistics, 2019 to 2024

Georgia traffic deaths and serious injuries by year

Deaths and fatal crashes: NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). Serious injuries: Georgia Department of Transportation counts as reported by the Governor's Office of Highway Safety (GOHS) in its FY2024 and FY2025 annual reports; the 2024 count is preliminary. 2024 deaths and fatal crashes are from NHTSA's Annual Report File; the final file may revise them slightly.

Georgia, year by year

Georgia's traffic deaths climbed from 1,492 in 2019 to 1,809 in 2021, then fell three years in a row to 1,403 in 2024. Per resident, the rate went from 14.0 deaths per 100,000 in 2019 to 16.8 in 2021 and 12.5 in 2024.

For every person killed, several more are seriously hurt. The Georgia Department of Transportation counted 8,171 people seriously injured in traffic crashes in 2023, about 5 for every death that year. Its preliminary count for 2024 is 7,920.

What was involved in Georgia's fatal crashes, by year

Deaths in crashes that involved each factor. A death can count in more than one column.

Alcohol: deaths in crashes where a driver or motorcycle rider had a blood alcohol concentration of .08 or higher, using NHTSA's estimates for drivers whose BAC was not tested. Speeding, distraction and truck: crashes NHTSA flags as speeding-related, distraction-affected or involving a large truck (over 10,000 pounds). Motorcyclists and pedestrians: people killed. Bicyclists killed are in the CSV file.

Impaired, speeding and distracted driving

About one death in four (25%) came in a crash where a driver had a blood alcohol level of .08 or higher, by NHTSA's estimate: 2,457 people from 2019 to 2024. Speeding was a factor in crashes that killed 2,126 (22%).

FARS counts 345 deaths in distraction-affected crashes over the six years, 71 of them in 2024. Distraction is hard to prove after a crash, and NHTSA notes that it is likely under-reported, so the real number is probably higher.

Trucks, motorcycles and people on foot

Crashes involving a large truck killed 1,340 people (14%). 1,156 motorcyclists (12%) and 1,763 pedestrians (18%) were killed, along with 145 bicyclists.

Pedestrian deaths rose from 236 in 2019 to 345 in 2022 and were 286 in 2024.

Traffic deaths in the ten counties we serve, 2019 to 2024

Per 100,000: deaths a year per 100,000 residents. Deaths 2019 to 2024 by county as recorded in FARS (where the crash happened, not where the people killed lived). Alcohol: deaths in crashes with a driver at .08 or higher, NHTSA estimates, rounded. Fatal crash counts are in the CSV file.

The ten counties we serve

Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett, the three largest counties, had the most deaths (809, 698 and 367). Per resident, the highest rates were in Banks (23.3 a year per 100,000) and Madison (22.9), two small, rural counties where a few crashes move the rate a lot. Gwinnett had the lowest (6.3).

Jackson County's rate was 16.9, against 14.9 for Georgia. Our study of fatal crashes in Northeast Georgia breaks the numbers down by road and time of day.

If you or your family were hurt in a crash

• In Georgia, the general deadline to file a lawsuit for a personal injury is two years from the crash. A claim that involves a city, a county or the state has a written-notice deadline that can be much shorter. See claims against a Georgia city, county or the state.
• Get a copy of the crash report early. Our guide explains how to get a Georgia accident report.
• A crash with a commercial truck can involve the trucking company and its insurer as well as the driver. See truck accidents.
• For a crash involving a motorcycle or a person on foot, see motorcycle accidents and pedestrian accidents.

How we did this

Deaths, fatal crashes and the factors involved come from NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), the federal census of fatal crashes, for 2019 to 2024. The 2019 to 2023 figures are from NHTSA's final files; 2024 figures are from NHTSA's Annual Report File, and the final file may revise them slightly. We used the national CSV files and NHTSA's auxiliary files, whose flags for speeding, distraction, large trucks and person type are the ones NHTSA uses in its own reports.

Alcohol figures use NHTSA's multiple-imputation estimates of driver blood alcohol, which fill in drivers who were not tested. Yearly figures are rounded.

Rates per 100,000 residents use the Census Bureau's July 1 population estimates for each year (Vintage 2025 for 2020 to 2024; Vintage 2020 for 2019).

Serious injuries come from the Georgia Department of Transportation, as reported by the Governor's Office of Highway Safety in its annual reports to NHTSA (FY2024 report for 2019; FY2025 report for 2020 to 2024). The two reports give the same counts for 2020 to 2023.

A separate script re-counted the deaths from NHTSA's raw files and checked the statewide yearly totals, the alcohol, speeding, motorcycle, pedestrian, bicycle and truck figures, and the Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett county totals against NHTSA's published report "Traffic Safety Facts: Georgia 2020-2024". The distraction counts for 2020 to 2023 match GOHS's published counts.

Limits

• FARS covers only crashes in which someone died within 30 days. Counts of all crashes and injuries come from the Georgia Department of Transportation's crash database, which does not offer a downloadable export, so we report serious injuries only, as GOHS publishes them.
• 2024 figures are from NHTSA's Annual Report File; the final file may revise them slightly. The 2024 serious-injury count is also preliminary and may change.
• Distraction is under-reported in crash records.
• Counts are small for Banks and Madison counties, so one or two crashes change their rate noticeably.
• FARS records where a crash happened, not where the people killed lived.