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California Traffic Fatalities by County

Deaths on California roads in 2023 for all 58 counties, from NHTSA's final crash file, set against Census Bureau population so large and small counties can be compared per 100,000 residents. The full table is below and the file is free to download.

Raw death counts mostly tell you where people live. Los Angeles County had 840 traffic deaths in 2023, more than any other county, but it also holds a quarter of the state's population. To compare counties you need a rate. NHTSA publishes the deaths and the Census Bureau publishes the population, in separate files. We joined the two on the county FIPS code and did the division.

The first table below covers Los Angeles and the other Southern California counties. The full 58-county table follows it.

California, 2023 (FARS final file)

4,169traffic deaths in 3,826 fatal crashes
10.64deaths per 100,000 residents
1,150pedestrians killed (27.6%)
598motorcyclists killed (14.3%)
1,633deaths in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes (39.2%)

What the numbers show

Statewide, 4,169 people died in 3,826 fatal crashes in 2023, a rate of 10.64 per 100,000 residents. That is down from 4,539 deaths in 2022 (11.60 per 100,000).

The highest rates sit in small rural counties: Trinity (50.99 per 100,000), Glenn (46.15), Siskiyou (42.00) and Inyo (38.00). Treat these with care. Trinity's rate comes from 8 deaths in a county of about 15,700 people, and one crash more or less moves it by several points. Alpine and Plumas recorded no traffic deaths at all in 2023.

Among the 26 counties with at least 250,000 residents, Merced (20.05), Kern (19.94), San Bernardino (17.52) and Tulare (17.05) had the highest rates. San Francisco (4.28), Marin (5.09) and San Mateo (5.18) had the lowest. All three of those lowest rates are in the Bay Area, and the four highest are in the Central Valley and the Inland Empire.

Los Angeles County's rate of 8.63 is below the state figure and ranks 46th of 58. Its pattern is different, though. Pedestrians were 290 of its 840 deaths, or 34.5 per cent, against 27.6 per cent statewide. Orange County was close behind at 32.9 per cent.

The Inland Empire looks worse than the coast. San Bernardino County lost 386 people (17.52 per 100,000) and had the highest pedestrian death rate of any large county, 5.58 per 100,000. Riverside County's rate was 13.38, and 44 per cent of its deaths came in crashes where a driver had a blood alcohol level of .08 or above, a higher share than Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego or Ventura.

Ventura (8.65) and San Diego (8.78) sat close to Los Angeles. Ventura's count rose from 57 deaths in 2022 to 72 in 2023, while San Bernardino's fell from 461 to 386. Year-to-year swings of that size are common at county level, which is why the file carries both years.

Southern California counties

Rank is out of 58 counties by 2023 death rate. Rates are per 100,000 residents.

Rank County Population 2023 Deaths 2023 Deaths per 100k Pedestrian per 100k Motorcyclist per 100k Alcohol-impaired per 100k Deaths per 100k, 2022
46 Los Angeles 9,732,568 840 8.63 2.98 1.35 3.38 8.88
44 San Diego 3,279,736 288 8.78 2.62 1.68 3.51 8.72
49 Orange 3,149,341 231 7.33 2.41 1.40 2.88 7.92
32 Riverside 2,503,742 335 13.38 3.39 2.00 5.88 14.40
23 San Bernardino 2,203,706 386 17.52 5.58 2.22 7.10 20.99
45 Ventura 832,071 72 8.65 1.32 2.04 3.50 6.83
42 Santa Barbara 442,878 40 9.03 1.58 1.13 4.02 8.76

All 58 counties

Sorted by the 2023 death rate, highest first. Rates are per 100,000 residents. Counties with fewer than 50,000 residents are marked with an asterisk because their rates can swing widely from year to year.

Rank County Population 2023 Deaths 2023 Deaths per 100k Pedestrian per 100k Motorcyclist per 100k Alcohol-impaired per 100k Deaths per 100k, 2022
1 Trinity* 15,690 8 50.99 6.37 6.37 33.78 37.94
2 Glenn* 28,168 13 46.15 7.10 10.65 9.23 24.68
3 Siskiyou* 42,856 18 42.00 2.33 0.00 18.67 38.99
4 Inyo* 18,420 7 38.00 10.86 5.43 10.86 64.37
5 Tuolumne 54,172 19 35.07 1.85 11.08 5.72 31.49
6 Sierra* 3,160 1 31.65 0.00 0.00 0.00 62.44
7 Calaveras* 46,563 14 30.07 0.00 6.44 12.46 34.38
8 Lake 68,026 19 27.93 7.35 4.41 11.17 26.37
9 Amador* 41,783 11 26.33 0.00 2.39 6.46 16.88
10 Kings 153,197 38 24.80 5.22 1.31 7.12 26.18
11 Mendocino 89,341 22 24.62 1.12 4.48 2.35 18.88
12 Yuba 85,709 21 24.50 4.67 5.83 4.78 20.15
13 Lassen* 28,694 7 24.40 0.00 3.49 7.67 23.13
14 Modoc* 8,542 2 23.41 0.00 0.00 0.00 34.88
15 Sutter 98,693 23 23.30 2.03 0.00 7.19 15.20
16 Colusa* 22,052 5 22.67 0.00 9.07 4.53 54.73
17 Tehama 65,048 14 21.52 1.54 4.61 4.77 29.09
18 Merced 294,319 59 20.05 3.74 2.38 7.68 24.33
19 Kern 917,599 183 19.94 5.23 2.40 6.62 23.99
20 Humboldt 133,956 26 19.41 5.97 2.24 6.20 18.52
21 Del Norte* 26,520 5 18.85 0.00 0.00 7.54 18.73
22 Mariposa* 16,934 3 17.72 0.00 5.91 8.27 5.86
23 San Bernardino 2,203,706 386 17.52 5.58 2.22 7.10 20.99
24 Madera 163,632 28 17.11 5.50 2.44 9.84 29.93
25 Tulare 480,816 82 17.05 4.16 1.46 8.32 17.36
26 Butte 207,286 35 16.88 3.38 3.86 5.74 15.44
27 San Joaquin 806,055 135 16.75 3.47 1.24 7.57 16.85
28 Stanislaus 554,459 89 16.05 4.87 1.80 5.52 15.93
29 Fresno 1,025,304 152 14.82 3.61 1.46 5.12 20.04
30 Nevada 102,060 14 13.72 0.98 2.94 4.31 17.58
31 Napa 133,628 18 13.47 1.50 2.99 7.18 8.18
32 Riverside 2,503,742 335 13.38 3.39 2.00 5.88 14.40
33 Sacramento 1,596,637 209 13.09 4.32 2.00 5.67 13.66
34 Shasta 180,695 22 12.18 3.32 1.11 4.98 17.13
35 Yolo 221,962 24 10.81 2.70 1.35 5.90 15.26
36 San Benito 68,267 7 10.25 0.00 2.93 3.22 32.51
37 Placer 425,195 43 10.11 0.71 1.88 3.43 9.08
38 Solano 451,377 44 9.75 1.77 1.33 3.72 16.67
39 Santa Cruz 263,322 25 9.49 1.90 1.90 1.78 10.16
40 Imperial 180,683 17 9.41 1.11 1.66 2.27 22.29
41 El Dorado 192,090 18 9.37 0.52 0.52 3.28 14.51
42 Santa Barbara 442,878 40 9.03 1.58 1.13 4.02 8.76
43 Monterey 434,107 39 8.98 1.61 0.69 3.62 13.08
44 San Diego 3,279,736 288 8.78 2.62 1.68 3.51 8.72
45 Ventura 832,071 72 8.65 1.32 2.04 3.50 6.83
46 Los Angeles 9,732,568 840 8.63 2.98 1.35 3.38 8.88
47 Contra Costa 1,161,953 98 8.43 1.38 1.03 3.43 5.95
48 Mono* 13,082 1 7.64 0.00 7.64 0.00 30.81
49 Orange 3,149,341 231 7.33 2.41 1.40 2.88 7.92
50 San Luis Obispo 282,225 20 7.09 1.77 1.42 2.80 12.38
51 Santa Clara 1,890,377 125 6.61 2.38 0.74 2.76 6.01
52 Alameda 1,633,055 99 6.06 2.27 0.55 2.16 6.74
53 Sonoma 483,405 29 6.00 1.24 0.62 2.50 7.86
54 San Mateo 733,949 38 5.18 1.63 0.68 1.78 6.56
55 Marin 255,443 13 5.09 0.00 1.17 2.04 6.22
56 San Francisco 816,926 35 4.28 2.20 0.24 2.03 5.16
57 Alpine* 1,105 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 174.06
58 Plumas* 19,088 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 25.78
California 39,181,667 4,169 10.64 2.94 1.53 4.17 11.60

Southern California counties are shaded. Sources: NHTSA FARS 2022 and 2023 final files; US Census Bureau Vintage 2025 population estimates.

Download the data

One CSV file, one row per county, 58 rows and 18 columns. Raw counts, populations and computed rates are all kept, so you can check our arithmetic or compute your own rates.
File: novian-california-traffic-fatalities-by-county.csv · text/csv · UTF-8

Download the CSV (6 KB)

How we built it

Deaths come from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), run by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. We used the 2023 and 2022 national CSV files published on NHTSA's download server. NHTSA's FARS Analytical User's Manual for 1975 to 2024 (DOT HS 813 794, March 2026) lists 2023 as the latest final file and 2024 as an Annual Report File, which is still subject to revision. We therefore used 2023 as the main year and did not use the 2024 file.

From the accident file we took every California crash (state code 6), counted crashes and summed deaths by county. From the person file we counted people killed (injury severity 4) who were pedestrians (person type 5), pedalcyclists (person type 6), or drivers and passengers of motorcycles and other motored cycles (person types 1 and 2 in a vehicle with body type 80 to 89). The per-person counts match the crash-level death totals for every county.

Alcohol-impaired-driving deaths follow NHTSA's own definition: deaths in crashes where at least one driver had a blood alcohol concentration of .08 g/dL or higher. Because BAC test results are missing for many drivers, NHTSA supplies ten multiply imputed BAC values per crash in the MIACC file. For each crash we counted how many of the ten imputations put the highest driver BAC at .08 or above, divided by ten, and multiplied by the crash's deaths. The county figure is the sum, rounded to a whole number.

Population comes from the Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program, Vintage 2025 county totals (co-est2025-alldata.csv), using the July 1 estimates for 2023 and 2022. We chose these estimates over the American Community Survey because they give a single-year figure for every county, including the smallest, while ACS 1-year data skips counties under 65,000 people and 5-year data averages across five years.

FARS county codes are the county part of the federal FIPS code, so each crash county was joined to its Census county on the five-digit FIPS code (06 plus the three-digit county). All 58 counties matched, and no California crash in either year carried an unknown county code. Each rate is the count divided by that year's population, times 100,000, rounded to two decimals.

Source files: FARS 2023 national CSV, FARS 2022 national CSV, FARS Analytical User’s Manual, and Census county population estimates.

Limits you should know

  • FARS counts only crashes on a public road that involve a motor vehicle in transport and kill someone within 30 days. Deaths in parking lots, on private property or more than 30 days after the crash are not included, and the file says nothing about the far larger number of non-fatal injury crashes.
  • The county is where the crash happened, not where the people involved lived. Counties crossed by major interstate routes or visited by large numbers of tourists record the deaths of non-residents, which raises their per-resident rates.
  • Small counties produce unstable rates. Eight counties have fewer than 20,000 residents, and in each of them a single death can move the rate by five points or more. Alpine County's rate went from 174 per 100,000 in 2022 (two deaths) to zero in 2023.
  • Alcohol-impaired figures are statistical estimates built from NHTSA's imputed BAC values, not counts of tested drivers. They are rounded to whole numbers, so the county column sums to 1,634 while the unrounded statewide total is 1,633.
  • A county with no deaths in a category is shown as 0, not left blank. The only blank cells are the alcohol-impaired share for Alpine and Plumas, where there were no deaths to divide by.
  • These are one or two years of data. They describe what happened, not the risk on any given road or the cause of any particular crash.

Column guide

Column What it holds
county_fips Five-digit federal FIPS code: 06 for California plus the three-digit county code. The join key.
county_name County name as published by the Census Bureau.
population_2023 Census Bureau resident population estimate for July 1, 2023 (Vintage 2025).
fatal_crashes_2023 Number of FARS crashes in the county in 2023 in which at least one person died.
fatalities_2023 People killed in those crashes (sum of FATALS in the FARS accident file).
fatalities_per_100k_2023 fatalities_2023 divided by population_2023, times 100,000.
pedestrian_fatalities_2023 People killed who were pedestrians (FARS person type 5).
pedestrian_fatalities_per_100k_2023 Pedestrian deaths per 100,000 residents.
motorcyclist_fatalities_2023 Drivers and passengers killed on motorcycles and other motored cycles (person types 1 and 2, body type 80 to 89).
motorcyclist_fatalities_per_100k_2023 Motorcyclist deaths per 100,000 residents.
pedalcyclist_fatalities_2023 People killed who were riding bicycles or other pedalcycles (person type 6).
pedalcyclist_fatalities_per_100k_2023 Pedalcyclist deaths per 100,000 residents.
alcohol_impaired_driving_fatalities_2023 Estimated deaths in crashes where the highest driver BAC was .08 g/dL or above, from NHTSA's multiply imputed BAC values; rounded to a whole number.
alcohol_impaired_driving_fatalities_per_100k_2023 Alcohol-impaired-driving deaths per 100,000 residents, computed from the unrounded estimate.
alcohol_impaired_share_of_fatalities_2023 Alcohol-impaired-driving deaths as a percentage of all deaths, from the unrounded estimate. Blank where the county had no deaths.
population_2022 Census Bureau resident population estimate for July 1, 2022 (Vintage 2025).
fatalities_2022 People killed in FARS crashes in the county in 2022 (final file).
fatalities_per_100k_2022 fatalities_2022 divided by population_2022, times 100,000.

Sources and reuse

The source data are works of the US federal government and are in the public domain. You are free to use this file. If you do, please cite the original sources (NHTSA FARS 2022 and 2023 final files; US Census Bureau Vintage 2025 county population estimates) and link back to this page.

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