How Many Crashes Does Bad Weather Cause Each Year?

Quick answer: Bad weather is a factor in about 12% of all crashes on US roads — nearly 745,000 crashes a year — killing 3,807 people and injuring 268,239, according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Rain, not snow, is the biggest weather danger: 77% of weather-related crashes happen in rain or mist.

What counts as a weather-related crash

The FHWA counts a crash as weather-related when it happens in adverse atmospheric conditions. That covers a long list:

• Rain, sleet, hail, snow, freezing rain or drizzle
• Fog, smog and smoke
• Severe crosswinds
• Blowing snow, sand, soil or dust

The definition matters. It is about the weather at the time of the crash, not about whether the road was wet from an earlier shower. A crash on a dry road in heavy rain counts. A crash on a wet road under a clear sky does not. Keep that in mind when comparing this figure with any other weather-crash total: different definitions give different totals.

Rain causes most weather crashes

The FHWA splits weather-related crashes by the condition at the time, averaged over 2019 to 2023:

• Rain or mist: 77% of weather-related crashes
• Freezing precipitation (snow, sleet, hail, freezing rain or drizzle): 18%
• Low visibility (fog, smog, smoke, blowing snow, sand, soil or dirt): 4%
• Severe crosswinds: 1%

Rain dominates because it is the most common bad weather and because it attacks driving in several ways at once. Wet roads give tyres less grip, spray from other vehicles cuts visibility, and standing water can make a car aquaplane. Snow and ice look more dramatic, but they affect fewer days and fewer miles of road, and many drivers stay home or slow down sharply when they arrive. The everyday downpour, repeated millions of times a year, does more damage than the occasional blizzard.

How deadly are weather crashes?

On the 2019 to 2023 average, weather-related crashes killed 3,807 people a year and injured 268,239. That is 9% of all road deaths and 11% of all road injuries, against 12% of all crashes. Weather crashes therefore make up a slightly smaller share of deaths than of crashes: they are common, but the average weather crash is less likely to kill than the average crash overall.

The toll is still large. It works out at more than 10 deaths a day on average, and more than 700 injuries a day, from crashes in bad weather alone. And because these are five-year averages, a single very wet year will sit above them.

Late October is weather-crash season

Late October is when the weather-crash risk steps up in the northern states. First frosts and first snowfalls arrive, wet leaves coat the roads, and sunsets come earlier, so the evening commute increasingly happens in darkness as well as rain. The combination matters: most US road deaths already happen after dark, as our night-driving figures show, and bad weather cuts visibility further still.

A few habits cut the risk more than any equipment. Slow down before you reach standing water, not in it. Leave a much longer following distance in rain, so you have room when the car ahead brakes. Keep headlights on in rain and fog, so others can see you as well as you can see the road. Never drive through a flooded road: the water is often deeper and faster than it looks. And check tyres and wipers before the first frost, not after it.

People on foot are hardest to spot in rain and spray, which makes this a pedestrian-safety issue too — see how many pedestrians die on US roads each year.

How these numbers were counted

All figures come from the FHWA Road Weather page, FHWA Road Weather, which reports five-year averages for 2019 to 2023, analysed by Athey Creek Consultants from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data. Crash and injury figures are estimates from police-reported crashes, while death counts come from the fatal-crash census. The figures are averages across five years, not the total for any single year. If you see a different FHWA weather total online, check the years attached to it: older bulletins used different averaging windows and give different totals. More statistics are in the article archive.