Each year the Arizona Department of Transportation publishes its Motor Vehicle Crash Facts report. We pulled three years of that official data into one place to show where crashes are trending across Arizona — and where they remain deadliest.
Sources: Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) Motor Vehicle Crash Facts reports, 2022–2024; NHTSA county fatality data. Latest full-year data: 2024.
Arizona traffic deaths peaked at 1,307 in 2023 (the second-worst year on record, behind only 1,301 in 2006) and have fallen since. 2024’s 1,228 is real progress — yet still higher than any year before 2021.
Encouraging direction — but 1,228 deaths still means more than three Arizonans lost on the roads every single day.
Two preventable factors dominate the 2024 fatality data.
Speeding alone injured 20,722 people in 2024 — about 38% of all crash injuries statewide. And 2,407 alcohol crashes (43.6% of the total) happened on nights and weekends.
Roughly half of all Arizona traffic deaths happen in Maricopa County — home to Phoenix and about 62% of the state’s population. In 2021, 596 of the state’s 1,180 traffic deaths occurred here, making it the single most dangerous place to drive in Arizona.
Three years of data point to one consistent reality: the most serious crashes cluster in the Phoenix metro, on local streets, during evening hours, and are driven overwhelmingly by speed and impairment. Deaths are trending down — a sign that awareness and enforcement help — but the numbers remain high enough that every Arizona driver should take these patterns seriously. If you or a loved one has been injured by a speeding, impaired, or distracted driver, an Arizona car accident lawyer can help you understand your rights.
About this report. Compiled by Elmm Law Group, an Arizona personal injury law firm, from the Arizona Department of Transportation’s official Motor Vehicle Crash Facts reports (2022–2024) and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration county-level data. These figures may be freely cited or embedded with attribution and a link to this page.
Different crashes raise different legal issues — see our Phoenix motorcycle accident lawyer and Phoenix truck accident lawyer pages for how these cases are handled.
Behind these numbers are real families. For fatal crashes, our Phoenix wrongful death lawyer team helps survivors; pedestrians hit by vehicles can turn to our Phoenix pedestrian accident lawyer page.
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