Many factors affect the likelihood of getting into a car accident such as time of day, weather, traffic, and age. Let’s take a look at some of the most important factors to determine when you are more likely to get in a car accident.

What Time of Year do Most Car Accidents Happen?

Here is some data from NHTSA on monthly crashes in 2019 in the United States

In 2019, there were 6,756,000 total crashes in the United States. Here is a breakdown from the NHTSA of the number of crashes per month:

Month Crashes
January 579,000
February 532,000
March 546,000
April 532,000
May 573,000
June 540,000
July 532,000
August 554,000
September 537,000
October 633,000
November 610,000
December 588,000

According to the data, October was the month with the highest number of accidents in 2019. 

There are higher crash rates around holidays including Memorial Day, New Year’s, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

According to data from FARS from 1975-2002, the day with the most vehicle occupant fatalities in the Fourth of July. 

What Time of Day Are You Most Liked to Get in a Car Crash?

According to NHTSA, the highest number of car crashes occurs between 3:00pm and 5:59pm which is also known as rush hour. In 2019, there were 135,000 accidents during rush hour compared to 43,000 from 3:00am to 5:59am, which would be the least likely time to get into an accident. 

Where Are You Most Likely to Get in a Car Accident?

Fatal car accident rates vary by state. The state with the highest number of fatal crashes in 2019 was California with 3,316. Wyoming had the highest rate per population of 100,000 people, which was 25.4. The District of Columbia had the lowest rate per 100,000, which was 3.3.

Studies from the NHTSA also show that you are more likely to get in a car crash on urban roads than rural. 45% of motor vehicle crash deaths occurred in rural areas in 2019. Vermont, Montana, and Wyoming had the highest numbers of rural crash deaths. 54% of fatal crashes occurred in urban areas.

Age Groups That Are Most Prone to Car Accidents

Teens are more likely to get in car accidents than other age groups. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), almost 2,400 teens in the United States aged 13–19 were killed in 2019 and about 258,000 were treated in emergency departments for car accident related injuries.

Let’s take a look at some data from the NHTSA report from 2019 to see which age groups suffered from the most injuries and fatalities. 

Age Group Total Killed and Injured
<5 45,000
5-9 64,000
10-15 100,000
16-20 312,000
21-24 260,000
25-34 564,000
35-44 426,000
45-54 380,000
55-64 332,000
65-74 186,000
>74 108,000
Total 2,776,000

 

According to this data, the age group 25-34 suffered from the greatest number of injuries and fatalities related to car accidents in 2019, while ages less than 5 suffered from the least amount of injuries and fatalities.

Colorado Car Accidents

Car accidents are one of the leading causes of death in Colorado. Speeding, lack of seat-belt use, and alcohol were major contributing factors to the fatal crash rate. Attorneys have seen the number of fatal car crashes in Colorado increasing since 2008. In 2008 there were 473 fatal crashes and in 2017 there were 600. 83.88% of these crashes were due to passengers not wearing seat belts. 91 of these drivers were 15 to 20 years old.