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How Many People Die at Intersections in the US Each Year?

Published 4 min read By Live Accident Tracker Editorial

Quick answer: In the United States, roughly one-quarter of all traffic deaths and about one-half of all traffic injuries happen at intersections, according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). In 2022, the latest year in FHWA's table, 12,036 people died in intersection-involved crashes out of 42,514 traffic deaths in total. Most of those deaths — 7,832 — happened at junctions without traffic lights.

Why intersections are where the danger is

Every journey passes through junctions, and every junction is a place where paths cross. Drivers turn left across oncoming traffic, pedestrians cross in front of turning vehicles, and cyclists ride through the same few square metres as lorries and buses. The Federal Highway Administration puts it plainly: where roads intersect, the conflict points create the circumstances where crashes can occur.

That is why FHWA treats intersections as a national, state and local road safety priority, and a programme focus area. The risk is not one bad behaviour. It is the junction itself, where turning, crossing and failing to yield all meet at once. FHWA calls making intersections safer a critical step towards its vision of zero deaths and serious injuries on the nation's roads.

For the wider picture of what is happening on the roads today, see today's accident reports.

The 2022 numbers in full

FHWA's figures come from NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), and they count every crash coded as an intersection, intersection-related, driveway access or driveway access-related crash. That definition is wider than crashes that happen exactly at the junction, and it matters for reading the numbers that follow.

  • In 2022, 12,036 people died in intersection-involved crashes in the United States.
  • Total traffic deaths that year were 42,514, so intersection-involved deaths were 28.3% of the total — close to the "roughly one-quarter" share FHWA quotes.
  • The toll has risen every year in the table: 10,148 in 2018, 10,273 in 2019, 10,720 in 2020, 11,799 in 2021 and 12,036 in 2022.
  • Over the same five years, total US traffic deaths rose from 36,835 to 42,514, so intersection deaths grew faster than the overall toll.
  • The table runs from 2018 to 2022 only; no later year is quoted here.

Unsignalized intersections carry the bigger toll

Unsignalized intersections — junctions controlled by a stop sign, a yield sign or nothing at all — are the most common type of intersection in the United States, and they carry the larger share of the deaths.

  • In 2022, 7,832 people died in crashes involving an unsignalized intersection, against 4,204 at signalized intersections.
  • That means almost two-thirds of intersection deaths happened where there was no traffic light.
  • The unsignalized toll has risen steadily too, from 6,801 deaths in 2018 to 7,832 in 2022.

Stop signs and yield signs ask drivers to judge gaps in traffic for themselves, and on low-volume rural and residential roads the junction may have no control at all. The numbers show how much of the toll sits in those everyday, unremarkable places rather than at big signalised crossroads.

Signalized intersections and red-light running

Traffic lights are often chosen to keep traffic moving, and FHWA notes they can involve trade-offs between safety and mobility. Signalized intersections account for about one-third of all intersection fatalities.

  • In 2022, 4,204 people died in crashes involving a signalized intersection.
  • Of those, 1,272 deaths involved red-light running at a signalized intersection, up from 871 in 2018.
  • Red-light running is only one slice of the intersection toll — about one in ten of the 12,036 deaths in 2022 — but it is the slice most drivers recognise, because it is a deliberate choice at a light that is already red.
  • The signalized toll rose from 3,347 deaths in 2018 to 4,204 in 2022, with red-light running deaths climbing in step.

A red light is the clearest instruction on the road, and the steady rise in deaths where it was ignored shows that the instruction alone is not enough.

Pedestrians and cyclists at junctions

People on foot and on bikes are the most exposed road users at a junction, because they have no steel around them and they cross the same conflict points as motor traffic.

  • In 2022, 1,033 pedestrians were killed at unsignalized intersections and 983 at signalized intersections.
  • Cyclists accounted for 263 deaths at unsignalized intersections and 182 at signalized intersections in the same year.
  • The pedestrian toll at unsignalized junctions has stayed close to 1,000 a year across the whole table, from 1,036 in 2018 to 1,033 in 2022, while the signalized figure rose from 817 to 983.

FHWA publishes separate guidance on designing intersections with pedestrians explicitly in mind, covering planning and design that make walking safe, accessible, convenient and comfortable. The aim is the same as for drivers: fewer conflict points, slower speeds where paths cross, and junctions that forgive a mistake instead of punishing it with a death.

How these numbers were counted

All figures in this article come from the Federal Highway Administration's intersection safety page, which publishes annual statistics drawn from NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). The latest year in the table is 2022, and no later year is quoted here. FARS counts people who died within 30 days of the crash, and the figures can be revised as reports are finalised.

The FHWA count includes crashes coded as Intersection, Intersection-related, Driveway access and Driveway access-related, so it is broader than crashes at the junction itself. Driveway crashes are part of the same total: How Many Children Die in Backover Crashes Each Year? looks at one kind of driveway crash in detail. The full archive of data articles is on the article archive page.

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