Crash Data
Five Years Later, New York's Traffic Deaths Are Still 18% Above 2019
New York recorded 1,101 traffic deaths in 2024, still 17.9% above the 934 killed in 2019. The pandemic spike has eased, but it hasn't reversed.
Key Finding
New York recorded 1,101 traffic deaths in 2024, 17.9% more than the 934 recorded in 2019, the state's pre-pandemic low. Deaths peaked at 1,182 in 2022 and have eased since, but they remain well above where they stood before the pandemic. The decade of steady declines that ran through 2019 has not resumed.
New York recorded 1,101 traffic deaths in 2024, 17.9% more than it recorded in 2019.
Most people assume road deaths spiked during the pandemic and then drifted back to normal. The first half is right. The second half is not.
1,101
people died on New York roads in 2024, still 17.9% above the 934 killed in 2019, the state's pre-pandemic low. Deaths peaked in 2022 and have eased since, but they have not returned to where they started.
New York City has made real progress on its own streets. The city closed 2025 with the fewest traffic deaths in its recorded history, and that good news is easy to read as the whole state’s story. It isn’t. Across all of New York, the pandemic-era jump in road deaths is still on the books.
Methodology
We counted every fatal traffic crash and every resulting death in New York State from the federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System, the national census of every crash that kills someone on a public road.
Deaths are the sum of all fatalities in each calendar year, and a fatal crash is any crash that kills at least one person within 30 days.
Figures for 2019 through 2023 come from the final FARS files. The 2024 figure comes from the 2024 Annual Report File, the annual release NHTSA publishes before the final file, and it can revise slightly. Every number below reflects New York State, not New York City alone.
Still Above the Pre-Pandemic Line
Traffic deaths in New York have not been this low since 2019, when 934 people died. That was the bottom of a long decline. In 2024, the count was 1,101.
The gap is 167 deaths, a 17.9% increase over the 2019 baseline. Fatal crashes moved the same way, from 879 in 2019 to 1,036 in 2024, also up about 18%.
| Year | Traffic deaths | Fatal crashes | Change vs 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 934 | 879 | baseline |
| 2020 | 1,045 | 958 | +11.9% |
| 2021 | 1,156 | 1,098 | +23.8% |
| 2022 | 1,182 | 1,111 | +26.6% |
| 2023 | 1,117 | 1,035 | +19.6% |
| 2024 | 1,101 | 1,036 | +17.9% |
The pandemic ended. The road toll it left behind did not.
That 2024 count is the lowest of the post-2019 stretch. It is also still higher than any single year New York recorded from 2016 through 2019.
A Decade of Progress, Undone
The 2019 figure was not a random low point. It was the end of a run. New York cut its traffic deaths every year from 2015 to 2019, from 1,136 down to 934, the fewest in the state’s modern record.
Then the direction reversed. Deaths jumped to 1,045 in 2020 and kept climbing into 2022. By 2024, at 1,101, New York had landed back around where it stood in 2015 and 2016, before that late-decade progress happened at all.
New York spent four years driving road deaths down. The pandemic gave the ground back in one.
That is the part the headline number hides. This is not only a state that is above its 2019 low. It is a state that erased several years of hard-won safety gains and has not rebuilt them.
The Peak Has Passed. The Floor Has Not.
There is good news in the recent numbers, and it is worth stating plainly. Deaths peaked at 1,182 in 2022. They fell to 1,117 in 2023 and 1,101 in 2024. That is a 6.9% drop off the peak, two years running.
So the state is not surging. Anyone reading these numbers as a runaway crisis is reading them wrong.
But easing is not the same as recovered. Two years of decline have clawed back only a fraction of the pandemic-era rise.
The floor under New York’s road toll reset higher in 2020, and it has stayed higher every year since. A person is still meaningfully more likely to die on a New York road today than in 2019.
Falling from a peak is progress. It is not the same as coming home.
What This Means for New Yorkers
Behind the 167-death gap are families. Each of those deaths is a wrongful-death case in waiting, and New York law puts a clock on all of them.
A family can bring a wrongful-death claim under EPTL Section 5-4.1 , generally within two years of the death. New York still limits those damages to economic losses, which means lost future earnings and funeral costs rather than the family’s grief. The legislature has tried to change that more than once, and it has not become law.
When a road itself is part of the story, a bad merge, a missing barrier, a flooded low spot, or worn markings, a government entity may share responsibility. Claims against the state, a city, or a county run on a much shorter clock.
A General Municipal Law Section 50-e Notice of Claim is generally due within 90 days of the crash, and missing it can end a claim before anyone looks at the facts.
Note
New York’s wrongful-death deadline is generally two years from the date of death, and a Notice of Claim against a government entity is generally due within 90 days of the crash.
These deadlines are strict. A family unsure whether a public road or agency played a role should get the crash reviewed early, while the evidence still exists.
The statewide numbers also matter as evidence. When a fatal crash happens on a stretch of road that state data already flags as dangerous, that record can help show a government entity knew about the risk. The pattern is public. Whether a specific road was on notice is the question a case turns on.
New York’s roads are safer than they were in 2022. They are not as safe as they were in 2019, and five years is long enough to stop calling that a blip.
Sources
- NHTSA. (2024). Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). https://www.nhtsa.gov/research-data/fatality-analysis-reporting-system-fars
- NYC DOT. (January 2026). Traffic Deaths Reach All-Time Low, New York City Ends Year With Fewest Fatalities Ever Recorded. https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2026/traffic-deaths-reach-all-time-low.shtml
Updated July 23, 2026
Frequently asked questions
- How many people died in New York traffic crashes in 2024?
New York recorded 1,101 traffic deaths in 2024, according to the federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System. That is 17.9% more than the 934 deaths recorded in 2019, the year before the pandemic. The 2024 figure comes from the Annual Report File and can revise slightly when the final file publishes.
- Are New York traffic deaths going back down?
Partly. Deaths peaked at 1,182 in 2022 and have eased each year since, to 1,117 in 2023 and 1,101 in 2024. That is real progress off the peak, but 2024 still sits about 18% above the 2019 level. The spike is receding. It has not returned to where it started.
- Why are New York roads more dangerous than before the pandemic?
The statewide census does not assign a single cause, and researchers point to several shifts that arrived together in 2020, including faster driving on emptier roads, less enforcement, and more people killed outside of cars. What the New York numbers show is the result: the steady declines that ran through 2019 stopped and have not resumed five years later.
- Can a family sue after a fatal crash in New York?
Yes. A family can bring a wrongful-death claim under EPTL Section 5-4.1, generally within two years of the death. If a dangerous road condition contributed and a government entity is responsible for that road, a Notice of Claim is due within 90 days under General Municipal Law Section 50-e. Those deadlines are strict, so families often talk to a lawyer early.
Injured in NYC? Talk to a Trial Lawyer.
Free consultation. No fee unless we win.
For journalists, researchers, and re-publishers
Use this insight
Cite this insight
Three formats. Click to copy. Use whichever your style guide accepts.
APA AP style BibTeX
Antin, J. S. (2026, July 23). Five Years Later, New York's Traffic Deaths Are Still 18% Above 2019. AEE Law Insights. https://aeelaw.com/insights/ny-traffic-deaths-still-above-2019/
Contact the data desk
AEE Law editorial desk. Press inquiries answered within one business day.
Contact the data desk
Methodology
Data sources
- NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), New York, 2019 to 2024
Processing notes
We counted every fatal traffic crash and every resulting death in New York State from the federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System, the national census of fatal motor-vehicle crashes. Deaths are the sum of fatalities across all fatal crashes in each calendar year. Figures for 2019 through 2023 come from the final FARS files. The 2024 figure comes from the 2024 Annual Report File, the annual release NHTSA publishes before the final file, and it can revise slightly.
Limitations
- The 2024 count is provisional and can change when the final file publishes.
- FARS counts deaths within 30 days of a crash, not later deaths from the same crash.
- Statewide totals do not show which roads or regions drove the change.
Peer review
Internal review only.
Last updated
2026-07-23
If you were injured in New York and need a lawyer, get Jeff's read on your case.
More from AEE Law Insights
New York's Deadliest Roads Aren't in the City. They're Upstate.
From 2019 to 2023, Genesee County recorded 51 traffic deaths against a population near 58,000, a rate of 88 per 100,000 residents over those five years. Manhattan's five-year rate was 11.5. Genesee's was 7.6 times higher. Thirty counties, nearly all of them rural and upstate, were deadlier per person than any New York City borough, even though the city recorded far more crashes overall.
The NYC E-Bike Injury Ledger: Every Crash, Every Person Hurt
New York's e-bike-involved crashes have injured 17,434 people and killed 133 since 2019, pedestrians and delivery riders alike. This ledger comes from a full review of 2.27 million NYPD collision records, counting e-bike crashes through May 2026. In 2025, eight of the city's 23 cyclist deaths happened in e-bike-involved crashes.
New York's Own Checkpoint Schedule Gives Away the Real Danger Days
NYPD collision records for 2014 through 2024 show July 3rd and July 5th combined average 166.8 people injured per day, 11.3% above every other day of the year. July 4th itself runs flat, 150.5 injured against a 149.8 baseline. Nationally, July 4th is the single deadliest calendar day on record, 25 years running, and the sharpest local spike inside that window hits at 10pm, not the afternoon. New York's own statewide numbers point past the Fourth too. July 5th ranks worse than July 4th for road deaths over the same 25-year record.