How Many People Die in Large-Truck Crashes in the US Each Year?

Quick answer: NHTSA's Traffic Safety Facts for 2024 show 5,340 people were killed in traffic crashes involving large trucks in the United States, down 2.5% from 5,478 in 2023. An estimated 161,201 people were injured in large-truck crashes in 2024, and an estimated 548,521 large trucks were in police-reported traffic crashes. Most of the people killed were not in the truck: 70% were occupants of other vehicles.

What counts as a large truck

NHTSA defines a large truck as any medium or heavy truck, excluding buses and motor homes, with a gross vehicle weight rating greater than 10,000 pounds. That includes both commercial and non-commercial vehicles. In 2024, 5,218 large trucks were in fatal traffic crashes. Of those, 69% were heavy trucks with a gross vehicle weight rating over 26,000 pounds, and 31% were medium trucks rated between 10,001 and 26,000 pounds.

Large trucks made up 9% of all vehicles in fatal traffic crashes in 2024, and 5% of all vehicles in injury and property-damage-only crashes. They accounted for 5% of all registered vehicles and 10% of total vehicle miles travelled in 2024. The fatal-crash share is therefore higher than their share of registered vehicles, which is one reason large-truck crashes receive close attention in national safety data. For the overall national picture, see how many people die on US roads each year.

Who dies in large-truck crashes

The most important pattern in the 2024 data is who bears the loss. Of the 5,340 people killed in crashes involving large trucks:

• Occupants of other vehicles: 3,753 deaths, 70%
• Occupants of large trucks: 920 deaths, 17%
• Nonoccupants, including pedestrians and pedalcyclists: 667 deaths, 12%

The same pattern holds for injuries, although the shares differ. Of the estimated 161,201 people injured in 2024, 116,475 (72%) were occupants of other vehicles, 41,454 (26%) were occupants of large trucks, and 3,273 (2%) were nonoccupants. Compared with 2023, deaths fell for every group: large-truck occupants by 4.4%, occupants of other vehicles by 2.3%, and nonoccupants by 0.9%. Injuries, by contrast, rose 5% overall from 2023 to 2024, driven by an 8.2% rise in injuries to occupants of other vehicles.

The longer trend shows how high the toll remains. Large-truck crash deaths rose from 4,095 in 2015 to 5,969 in 2022, before falling to 5,478 in 2023 and 5,340 in 2024. The 2024 total is still well above the 2015 figure, so a single year's fall does not erase a decade of growth.

When and where fatal large-truck crashes happen

NHTSA's crash-characteristic figures for 2024 describe a working-week, daytime and rural pattern:

• 56% of fatal traffic crashes involving large trucks occurred in rural areas.
• 25% occurred on interstates.
• 76% occurred on weekdays, defined as 6 a.m. Monday to 5:59 p.m. Friday.
• Of those weekday fatal crashes, 70% occurred during daytime, from 6 a.m. to 5:59 p.m.
• 5% occurred in work zones.

Large trucks were also more likely than passenger vehicles to be in multivehicle fatal crashes: 80% of large trucks in fatal crashes were in multivehicle crashes, compared with 63% for passenger vehicles. In two-vehicle fatal crashes involving a large truck and another vehicle, both vehicles had frontal impacts in 30.7% of cases. Rear-end impacts occurred three times more frequently for large trucks, at 22.1%, than for other vehicle types, at 6.8%.

One further figure from the fact sheet cuts against a common assumption. Only 4% of drivers of large trucks in fatal crashes in 2024 had blood alcohol concentrations of 0.08 grams per decilitre or higher, compared with 25% for both motorcycle and passenger-car drivers and 19% for light-truck drivers in fatal crashes. Alcohol impairment among truck drivers in fatal crashes was therefore far less common than among drivers of other vehicle types.

What the pattern means for other drivers

Because most deaths are people in smaller vehicles, the practical message of the data is aimed as much at car drivers as at truck drivers. Keeping a longer following distance behind a large truck matters because a truck needs more distance to stop, and a rear-end impact is a disproportionately common fatal-crash pattern for trucks. Staying out of a truck's blind spots, giving trucks room to turn, and avoiding sudden cut-ins in front of a truck all follow from the same multivehicle pattern: these are crashes between vehicles of very different size, and the smaller vehicle absorbs most of the harm.

The rural and weekday daytime pattern also matters. These are not mainly late-night crashes. They happen in normal working traffic, on rural roads and interstates, when freight is moving. Drivers sharing those roads during the working day are the people most exposed to the risk the figures describe. For the latest incidents across the country, see today's accident reports and the site's statistics pages.

How these numbers were counted

These figures come from NHTSA's Traffic Safety Facts: Large Trucks, 2024 Data, published in June 2026 as DOT HS 813 816. Fatality counts come from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, which records actual counts, while injury figures are estimates from the Crash Report Sampling System, so injury totals are estimates rather than exact counts. The 2024 figures are from the annual report file, which can be revised in the final file.

A large truck in this fact sheet is a medium or heavy truck with a gross vehicle weight rating greater than 10,000 pounds, excluding buses and motor homes. Because of a vehicle classification change, data from 2020 onwards are not comparable with 2019 and earlier years. Crashes on private property not regularly used by the public for transport are excluded.