How FARS counts a fatal crash
Last checked against the NHTSA pages:
The Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) is a census of fatal motor vehicle crashes that NHTSA keeps. Analysts in each state gather the documents of a crash, such as the police crash report and the death certificate. They code each crash into a standard set of tables. The national file of 2024 has 36,297 crashes and 39,254 deaths.
The rule
A crash is in FARS when two conditions are true. The crash involves a motor vehicle on a trafficway that is open to the public. One or more persons die in 30 days or less after the crash.
To qualify as a FARS case, the crash had to involve a motor vehicle traveling on a trafficway customarily open to the public and must have resulted in the death of a motorist or a non-motorist within 30 days of the crash.
- A death 31 days after the crash is not in FARS.
- A crash on private property is not in FARS.
- A crash with no motor vehicle in transport is not in FARS. NHTSA counts a stalled vehicle on the roadway as in transport.
Crashes and deaths
FARS has one record for each crash. The record gives the number of persons who died. On this site, "fatal crashes" is the number of records and "deaths" is the sum of the persons who died. In the United States there are about 1.09 deaths for each fatal crash from 2015 to 2024.
A driver recorded as drinking
FARS records a driver as drinking when police reported alcohol involvement, or when a test of the driver was positive for alcohol. A crash is in the alcohol count of this site when FARS records one or more of its drivers as drinking.
The count is not a count of drivers with a blood alcohol concentration of .08 g/dL or more. NHTSA's alcohol-impaired measure uses that limit, and NHTSA estimates the values that are missing. This site does not give that measure.
Note that alcohol data is often missing. For that reason, this data element may under-count the actual number of drinking drivers.
The glossary has more of the words of NHTSA.
A speeding-related driver
Each vehicle record has a code for speeding. The state analyst sets it from the crash report. The codes are racing, exceeded the speed limit, too fast for conditions, and speeding with no detail. It records what law enforcement identified. It is not a measurement of speed.
Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists and restraints
The person table records the type of each person, the vehicle, the injury and the restraint in use. The counts of pedestrians and motorcyclists are counts of persons killed. The counts for alcohol and speeding are counts of crashes.
What FARS does not show
- Crashes with no death. NHTSA estimates those from a sample in a different system, the Crash Report Sampling System.
- Responsibility. FARS codes conditions and actions. A recorded factor is not the cause of a crash.
- Traffic. FARS gives counts. This site adds the residents and, for states, the vehicle-miles.
The guide How to use FARS figures in a local story shows how a count becomes a rate.
Sources
This guide follows the FARS Analytical User's Manual, 1975-2024 (sections "Introduction", "FARS Operations" and the entries for the fields DR_DRINK and SPEEDREL) and the Terms page of the FARS Encyclopedia. The text was checked against them on 2 October 2026.