Alaska fatal crashes in 1981

FARS records 100 deaths in 90 fatal crashes in Alaska in 1981.

In 1980 it records 88 deaths in 79 fatal crashes.

This site gives no rate for the years before 2000.

Deaths in Alaska rose by 13.6% from 1980 to 1981. In the United States they fell by 3.5%.

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.
The set of first files, known as the Annual Report File (ARF), is released following the crash year. The ARF is replaced about a year later with a final file, which contains additional cases or updates to cases that had become available after the ARF was released.
NHTSA's words. Source: NHTSA, Fatality Analysis Reporting System Analytical User's Manual, 1975-2024 (DOT HS 813 794, April 2026), copied on 2 Oct 2026.

This site reads the years before 2015 from one fixed copy. It does not track later revisions of these years. Release dates

1981 beside 1980

Table 1.Alaska in 1981, in 1980 and the United States in 1981
Figure	Alaska, 1981	Alaska, 1980	United States, 1981
Deaths	100	88	49,301
Fatal crashes	90	79	44,000
Deaths for each 100,000 residents	n/a	n/a	n/a
Fatal crashes with a driver recorded as drinking	n/a	45	n/a

Note: this site has no rate for the years before 2000.

Note: FARS records a driver as drinking when police reported alcohol involvement or a test of the driver was positive for alcohol. It is not NHTSA's alcohol-impaired measure. NHTSA's definitions

NHTSA says that its count of drinking drivers is unreliable for 1977, 1981 and 1999 to 2007, because it was derived in a wrong way. This site gives no count for these years.

For the years before 2015 the count is from the FARS element DRUNK_DR. It counts a blood alcohol concentration of .01 g/dL or more. From 2015 the count is from DR_DRINK and counts .001 g/dL or more.

Counties in 1981

Table 2.Alaska: counties with a fatal crash in 1981, in name order
County	Deaths	Fatal crashes
Anchorage Municipality	37	34
Bristol Bay Borough	1 or 2	1 or 2
Dillingham Census Area	1 or 2	1 or 2
Fairbanks North Star Borough	12	11
Juneau City and Borough	1 or 2	1 or 2
Kodiak Island Borough	1 or 2	1 or 2
Matanuska-Susitna Borough	8	6
Nome Census Area	1 or 2	1 or 2
Sitka City and Borough	1 or 2	1 or 2
Southeast Fairbanks Census Area	3	3

Note: a county with no fatal crash in 1981 is not in the table. A count of 1 or 2 is written "1 or 2".

Time of day and weekday

Table 3.Alaska: fatal crashes by time of day, 1981
Time of day	Fatal crashes	Share
Midnight to 6 a.m.	33	36.7%
6 a.m. to noon	7	7.8%
Noon to 6 p.m.	10	11.1%
6 p.m. to midnight	40	44.4%

Table 4.Alaska: fatal crashes by weekday, 1981
Weekday	Fatal crashes	Share
Sunday	17	18.9%
Monday	11	12.2%
Tuesday	12	13.3%
Wednesday	16	17.8%
Thursday	10	11.1%
Friday	9	10.0%
Saturday	15	16.7%

Note: the tables have the fatal crashes with a known hour or weekday.

Cite this page

Fatal Roads. Alaska fatal crashes in 1981. https://fatalroads.com/state/alaska/1981/. Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Fatality Analysis Reporting System, FARS 2024 annual file. Data to 31 Dec 2024.

The address of this page does not change.

Source of the figures

Counts: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Fatality Analysis Reporting System, national file of 1981. This site reads the years before 2015 from one fixed copy. It does not track later revisions of these years. Residents: Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program, vintage 2025. Data to 31 Dec 2024.

How the figures are made. Data sources and licences. Corrections.

Questions

Which file does the 1981 page use?

This site reads the years before 2015 from one fixed copy. It does not track later revisions of these years.

What part of the deaths in the United States in 1981 was in Alaska?

Alaska had 100 of the 49,301 deaths in the United States in 1981. That is 0.2 percent.

In how many counties of Alaska did FARS record a fatal crash in 1981?

FARS records one or more fatal crashes in 10 counties of Alaska in 1981.