From 2020 to 2024, 205,237 people died in crashes on US roads. Where FARS recorded whether the crash was on a rural or an urban road, 83,780 people, 41.0%, died on rural roads, and 120,495 on urban roads.
Rural and urban crashes are different in who dies, on what kind of road, and at what time of day.
Who dies where
On rural roads, most of the people killed were inside a vehicle. In towns and cities, a quarter were on foot.
| Killed | Rural roads | Share of rural deaths | Urban roads | Share of urban deaths |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| People in cars, trucks and other vehicles, not motorcycles | 66,348 | 79.2% | 64,776 | 53.8% |
| Motorcyclists | 10,559 | 12.6% | 19,948 | 16.6% |
| Pedestrians | 5,647 | 6.7% | 30,123 | 25.0% |
| Cyclists | 939 | 1.1% | 4,350 | 3.6% |
| Others | 287 | 0.3% | 1,298 | 1.1% |
Looked at the other way, half of all vehicle occupants killed (50.6%) died on rural roads, compared with 34.6% of motorcyclists, 17.8% of cyclists and 15.8% of pedestrians.
These are counts of deaths, not risks. FARS does not record how many miles are driven or walked on rural and urban roads, so it cannot show that one kind of road is more dangerous per trip than the other.
Collectors and local roads
Urban deaths are concentrated on major roads: 34.5% were on principal arterials, the main roads through a city that are not freeways. Rural deaths are spread more widely. 43.3% of rural deaths were on collectors and local roads, the smaller roads that feed into highways, compared with 20.7% of urban deaths.
| Type of road | Rural deaths | Share | Urban deaths | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Interstate | 9,497 | 11.4% | 16,843 | 14.0% |
| Other freeways and expressways | 1,468 | 1.8% | 7,343 | 6.1% |
| Principal arterials | 19,520 | 23.4% | 41,531 | 34.5% |
| Minor arterials | 16,833 | 20.2% | 29,668 | 24.7% |
| Collectors | 25,027 | 30.0% | 14,518 | 12.1% |
| Local roads | 11,173 | 13.4% | 10,426 | 8.7% |
Head-on collisions were almost twice as common on rural roads: 14.8% of rural fatal crashes, against 8.1% of urban ones.
Day, night and drinking
Most urban fatal crashes happen at night. Where the time was recorded, 59.9% of urban fatal crashes were between 6pm and 6am, against 45.7% on rural roads, where more of the crashes happen in daylight.
Police reported a drinking driver in 28.4% of rural fatal crashes and 24.3% of urban ones. Speeding was reported at almost the same rate on both: 27.8% of rural fatal crashes and 28.4% of urban ones.
Longer waits for help
FARS also records when emergency medical services arrived, though the time is known for fewer than half of crashes. Where it was recorded, the median wait was 14 minutes after a rural crash and 8 minutes after an urban one. In 13.8% of those rural crashes help took 30 minutes or more to arrive, compared with 4.2% of urban crashes.
States where most deaths are rural
In 27 states, most traffic deaths in 2020–2024 were on rural roads. The share was highest in Vermont, at 83.7%, followed by Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Maine and South Dakota, all at about 80%. It was lowest in the District of Columbia, where none of the deaths were on rural roads, Massachusetts (6.7%) and New Jersey (10.6%).
The largest numbers were in the biggest states: Texas had 8,111 rural deaths, 38.2% of its total, and California 5,733. North Carolina, with 4,604, was the only other state above 4,000, and 57.2% of its deaths were rural.
Taken together, the 27 mostly rural states had 14.7 deaths per 100,000 people a year, against 11.3 in the other 23 states and DC. Eight of the ten states with the highest rates were mostly rural, led by Mississippi at 25.1, where 68.8% of deaths were on rural roads. The pattern is not uniform: Minnesota (57.0% rural) and New Hampshire (53.4%) had some of the lowest rates in the country, at 7.7 and 9.0.
| Category | Deaths per 100,000 |
|---|---|
| Mississippi | 25.1 |
| Wyoming | 21.4 |
| Arkansas | 20.8 |
| New Mexico | 20.7 |
| South Carolina | 20.5 |
| Montana | 19.4 |
| Alabama | 19.0 |
| Louisiana | 18.5 |
| Tennessee | 18.0 |
| Oklahoma | 17.3 |
| Kentucky | 17.0 |
| Arizona | 16.6 |
| Missouri | 16.2 |
| South Dakota | 15.7 |
| Florida | 15.3 |
Deaths in the selected crashes divided by Census population estimates for the same years.
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About these figures
Rural or urban is the land use at the crash location as recorded in FARS, based on the road's classification by the state; 931 fatal crashes, in which 962 people died, had no rural or urban code and are left out of the comparisons. Road types exclude 428 deaths with no road type recorded; collectors combine major and minor collectors. Vehicle occupants exclude motorcyclists. Drinking driver and speeding are as police reported for any driver in the crash, and times exclude 1,361 rural and urban crashes with no recorded hour. Emergency arrival times are from 34,575 rural and 45,335 urban crashes where both the crash time and arrival time were recorded, leaving out records where arrival appeared to come before the crash. State rates use each state's population for each year. How the data works