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Fatal truck accident data and trends

The most repeated claim on this subject is that deaths have climbed steeply since 2009. The published series does show that. It also contains a break, in 2016, that the publisher warns against comparing across, and the break sits inside the climb. Meanwhile the rate per mile driven is far below where it was in 1975. Both things are true.

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By Michael Mangione, Legal Research Editor Last reviewed August 1, 2026 16 min read
Trough of the series
3,193
Fatal crashes, 2009. The lowest point in the published run.
Ten years later
4,722
2019. An increase of 48 percent, crossing a methodology break.
Vehicles reclassified
329
Light pickups counted as large trucks from 2016 data onward.
Fatality rate
0.192
Per 100 million miles, 2022. It was 0.363 in 1975.

Key takeaways

  • The series is not continuous. A reclassification took effect with 2016 data and the publisher says comparisons across it need caution.
  • The famous increase spans that break. Which does not make it false, but does mean it should never be quoted flatly.
  • Counts and rates disagree. Counts are up since 2009; the rate per mile driven is roughly half its 1975 level.
  • We do not claim the reclassification caused anything. It coincides with the largest jump. Coincidence is not attribution.
Editorial content, not legal advice

This guide is written and reviewed by our editorial team to be accurate and current. It is general information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. We are not statisticians. Every figure below was retrieved from the publication named beside it during the writing of this page. National trend data describes a population over time and says nothing about any individual crash, claim, or its value. We are a referral service and are paid by attorneys.

01 The claim everybody makes

Quick answer

That deaths on the road involving large trucks have risen sharply since around 2009. Arithmetically the published series supports it: a trough of 3,193 fatal crashes in 2009 against 4,722 in 2019, an increase of 48 percent. The problem is not the arithmetic.

The problem is that the ten years in question contain a change in how the vehicles were classified, and the agency publishing the numbers says so in a footnote attached to the series itself.

So a page telling you that fatal truck accidents rose by roughly half in a decade is quoting real published figures and omitting the warning printed beside them. That is not the same as lying, and it is not good enough either.

Bottom line: the increase is real, the break is real, and honest use of the figure mentions both.

02 What changed in 2016

Quick answer

The definition of the vehicles being counted. Starting with 2016 data, a set of light pickup trucks previously counted as passenger vehicles were reclassified as large trucks. The agency records the number, and warns against comparing across the boundary.

The publisher, on its own series
Comparisons with prior years should be performed with caution
FMCSA, Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts, note accompanying the trends tables

The note reads: Beginning with data for 2016, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) implemented changes to revise vehicle classification based on gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR), which reclassified 329 light pickup trucks (included in passenger vehicle count) as large trucks. Due to this methodology change, comparisons of the 2016 (and later) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) large truck data with prior years should be performed with caution. The agency elsewhere records that those 329 vehicles classified as light pickup trucks (included in passenger vehicle count) were reclassified in the FARS 2016 Amended Final file as large trucks. Read the edition

Two things follow. Some vehicles that would have counted as passenger vehicles before 2016 count as large trucks afterwards, so the later years are not measuring quite the same population. And the warning is not our inference; it is printed on the tables. Any count of fatal truck accidents spanning that year inherits the problem.

03 The series, year by year

Quick answer

Here is the published run, so you can see the shape rather than take a summary of it. The trough is 2009, the high point is 2019, and the boundary falls between 2015 and 2016, right in the middle of the rise.

  1. 20064,643
  2. 20074,472
  3. 20083,994
  4. 20093,193Lowest point in the published run
  5. 20103,512
  6. 20113,593
  7. 20123,726
  8. 20133,821
  9. 20143,656
  10. 20153,864
  11. 20164,396Reclassification takes effect from this year
  12. 20174,587
  13. 20184,678
  14. 20194,722Highest point in the published run
  15. 20204,588

Large truck and bus fatal crashes. Source: FMCSA, Trends in Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety, presented March 2022. The 2016 row is where the reclassification takes effect; the same slide carries that caution as a footnote to this series.

One observation, and one we deliberately stop short of. The largest single-year rise in the run falls between 2015 and 2016, from 3,864 to 4,396. That is the year the reclassification took effect. We are noting that the jump coincides with the boundary, and we are not saying the reclassification caused it: 329 vehicles reclassified is not the same quantity as 532 additional fatal crashes, and the published summaries do not attribute the increase to anything. Asserting a cause from a coincidence in timing would be the same mistake this page exists to point out.

04 Counts up, rate down

Quick answer

Both are true and they answer different questions. How many people died is a count. How dangerous a mile of driving is comes closer to a rate, and the rate has been falling for decades even while counts rose.

Anybody arguing about truck accident fatalities is usually holding one of these and treating it as the whole picture.

  • The rate held at 0.192 in 2022. Fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled by all motor vehicles, unchanged from 2021.
  • That is 6 percent below the 21st-century peak. Which the agency puts at 0.205 in 2000, and it says so in its own summary.
  • And roughly half the 1975 figure. The rate then was 0.363, so on a per-mile basis the long trend is downward and substantial.
  • More driving produces more crashes. A count rising while a rate falls is what happens when exposure grows faster than risk declines.

Neither number is the honest one on its own. A page quoting only the count is arguing that things are getting worse; a page quoting only the rate is arguing the opposite; the data supports a more boring sentence than either. Truck accident fatalities have risen in absolute terms while becoming less likely per mile, and that is the whole finding.

05 The long view, from 1975

Quick answer

The federal series starts in 1975, which is far enough back to be genuinely useful. The first row is worth reading carefully, because several of its columns are still quoted today without anybody noticing they measure different things.

Fatal crashes involving large trucks or busesEvents. The count that the series in section three continues.FMCSA, Trends Table 1, 1975 row
4,0321975
Large trucks and buses involved in fatal crashesVehicles. Higher, because one crash can involve more than one.FMCSA, Trends Table 1, 1975 row
4,3041975
Total fatalities in those crashesPeople. Higher again, for the same reason.FMCSA, Trends Table 1, 1975 row
4,8161975
Fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveledThe rate. Compare with 0.192 in 2022.FMCSA, Trends Table 1, 1975 row
0.3631975

Three counts and a rate, all from one row, all describing the same year. They are not interchangeable.

This is the same distinction our national statistics page works through for the current year, arriving here from the other end of the series.

06 How to state a trend honestly

Quick answer

Name the series, give the years, say which quantity you are counting, and mention the break if your period crosses it. That is four clauses, and almost nothing published on this subject contains all four.

A sentence meeting that standard is duller than the usual version and considerably harder to argue with, which is why so little published about fatal truck accidents meets it.

  • Say which quantity. Crashes, vehicles involved and people killed are three different series, and section five shows how far apart they start.
  • Give both endpoints. A percentage without its start and end years cannot be checked by anybody.
  • Flag the boundary if you cross it. One clause does it, and leaving it out is where most published trend claims fail.
  • Say whether it is a count or a rate. Because as section four shows, the two can point in opposite directions in the same decade.

Our research overview sets the same standard for everything in this section, and our page on the most dangerous highways applies it to geography.

07 Red flags

Quick answer

A percentage increase with no years attached, a trend spanning 2016 with no mention of the reclassification, a count presented as a measure of danger, and any of it used to suggest what a case is worth.

All four can be spotted without opening a single table, which is what makes them worth remembering when somebody quotes fatal truck accidents at you.

How trend claims go wrong

A percentage with no endpoints. Up 50 percent since when, and to when. Without both, nothing can be checked. A period crossing 2016 with no caveat. The publisher prints the warning on the table; quoting the number while dropping the note is the commonest failure on this subject. A count offered as a danger measure. Counts rise with exposure. The rate is closer to what people mean by dangerous, and it has been falling. Series mixed together. Crashes, vehicles and deaths are three different runs and get quoted interchangeably. A trend attached to a case value. National data over time says nothing at all about one claim.

A closing word on restraint. The most tempting sentence available on this page was that a reclassification inflated the increase everybody quotes. We have not written it, because the coincidence in timing is all the published record supports and 329 reclassified vehicles is not 532 extra crashes. Saying less than the data allows is the only way a research page stays worth citing. If you have lost somebody in one of these crashes, none of this bears on your claim; our guide to choosing a truck accident firm is a better use of your time than any trend line.

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Everything on this page is national and historical. None of it varies by state and none of it describes the law anywhere. What does vary, and what actually affects a claim, is how fault is apportioned and whether a share of blame reduces or bars a recovery, how long you have to bring a claim, whether damages are capped, what a carrier must hold in insurance, what happens when evidence is destroyed, and who may bring a claim for somebody killed. A national trend line speaks to none of that and says nothing about whether any claim has merit or what it might be worth. The deadline for bringing a claim, known as the statute of limitations, is running now.

Sources and authorities

Four federal sources, and one claim we deliberately did not make.

The series and its discontinuity

  • Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts, notes accompanying the trends tables. Source of the reclassification statement quoted in section two, including the figure of 329 light pickup trucks moved from the passenger vehicle count into the large truck count beginning with 2016 data, and of the instruction that comparisons of 2016 and later FARS large truck data with prior years should be performed with caution. FMCSA.
  • Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Trends in Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety, presented March 2022. Source of the year-by-year values in section three for large truck and bus fatal crashes from 2006 to 2020. The same slide carries the reclassification caution as a footnote to that series.
  • Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Trends Table 1, Large Truck and Bus Fatal Crash Statistics, series beginning 1975. Source of the four 1975 figures in section five: 4,032 fatal crashes, 4,304 vehicles involved, 4,816 total fatalities, and a fatalities rate of 0.363 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled by all motor vehicles.
  • Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts 2022, report number FMCSA-RRA-24-001, published September 2025. Source of the statement that the fatalities rate stayed at 0.192 from 2021 to 2022, which the agency describes as 6 percent below the 21st-century peak of 0.205 in 2000.

The claim we did not make, and why it matters more than the ones we did. The largest single-year rise in the published series falls exactly at the reclassification boundary, from 3,864 in 2015 to 4,396 in 2016. It would have been easy, and would have read well, to say that the change inflated the increase everybody quotes. We have not, because the published record supports only the coincidence in timing. The reclassification moved 329 vehicles; the series rose by 532 crashes; those are different quantities, and no published summary attributes the rise to the change. A research page that inferred causation from adjacency would be committing the error it spends seven sections warning about.

On the series shown in section three. It is presented as published, year by year, rather than summarized, so a reader can see the shape and locate the boundary themselves rather than taking our description of it. The bars are proportional to the values shown beside them and every value label sits outside its bar, so nothing depends on reading text against a coloured fill.

On retrieval. Every figure on this page was taken from the publication named beside it while this page was being written. None was written from memory and then attributed. If a later editor updates the series, the correct method is to retrieve the current edition rather than extending the numbers here.

Our editorial standards

How we keep this guide accurate and worth trusting.

01

We print the publisher's warning

The reclassification note is quoted in full, not summarized away.

02

We show the series, not a summary

Fifteen years as published, so you can find the seam yourself.

03

We stopped short of the good line

Timing coincidence is not causation, however well it would have read.

04

We carry both directions

Counts up and rate down, without pretending either settles it.

Michael Mangione, Legal Research Editor
Michael Mangione Verified editor
Legal Research Editor · Founder, The Mangione Group, Inc.

MVA Lawyer Network is edited by Michael Mangione, who has spent more than twelve years working inside contingency-based law firms, building intake departments, designing qualification frameworks, and studying how claims are screened and pursued from the first call through resolution. Trend statistics travel further than any other kind, and the footnote never travels with them.

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Common questions, answered

General information, not legal advice. National trend data says nothing about any individual claim.

Have fatal truck crashes really risen since 2009?

On the published counts, yes: from a trough of 3,193 in 2009 to 4,722 in 2019, an increase of 48 percent. The qualification that almost never travels with that figure is that a vehicle reclassification took effect with 2016 data, inside that period, and the agency publishing the series states that comparisons across it should be performed with caution. The increase is real; quoting it flatly is not accurate.

What exactly changed in 2016?

Vehicle classification. Beginning with 2016 data, NHTSA revised classifications based on gross vehicle weight rating and reclassified 329 light pickup trucks, which had been counted as passenger vehicles, as large trucks. That means later years are not counting quite the same population as earlier ones. Section two quotes the note in full, because it appears on the tables themselves rather than being something we worked out.

Did the reclassification cause the increase?

We do not know, and neither does anybody quoting the figure. The largest single-year rise in the series does fall at the boundary, from 3,864 to 4,396. But 329 reclassified vehicles is not the same quantity as 532 additional fatal crashes, and no published summary attributes the rise to the change. We have deliberately not made that claim, because inferring cause from timing is the error this page exists to warn about.

Are the roads getting more dangerous or less?

Depends which question you are asking. More people are dying in these crashes than in 2009, which is a count. Per hundred million miles driven, the fatality rate was 0.192 in 2022, which the agency puts 6 percent below its 2000 peak and which compares with 0.363 in 1975, so on that measure the long trend is strongly downward. Counts rise with exposure. Both figures are honest and neither is the whole answer.

Why start the chart at 2006?

Because that is the run published in the source we used, and we show published runs rather than assembling our own. The wider series goes back to 1975 and section five gives that starting row. Choosing a start year is one of the easiest ways to make a trend say what you want, which is why we have used a published range and named it rather than picking endpoints ourselves.

Does any of this affect my case?

No. National trend data describes a population across decades and has nothing to say about one crash, one injury or one claim. It cannot indicate liability, value or how long anything will take. What matters is the evidence in your own case and the law of the state where it happened. If you have lost somebody, this page is not the one that will help you, and we would rather say that than let a statistic look useful.

Where can I check these figures?

Every one is named with its publication in the sources section, and the federal editions are free and public. The series in section three comes from a March 2022 agency presentation; the 1975 row from Trends Table 1; the rate figures from the 2022 edition of Crash Facts. Checking is the entire point: a trend figure you cannot trace to a dated publication is not evidence of anything.

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Injury firms generally work on a contingency basis, meaning the fee is a percentage of what is recovered set out in the written agreement and there is nothing to pay up front. Case costs, meaning experts and records and filing fees, are a separate item from the fee, and the agreement should say plainly who carries them and what happens to them if the case does not succeed.

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