The Deadliest Interstates: Crash Deaths per Mile, 2020 to 2024

Deaths per mile: I-45 and I-4 lead the ranking

Ranked by deaths per mile of road, I-45 comes first at 26.1 deaths per 100 route miles a year and I-4 second at 25.3. The next three are I-30 at 19.8, I-17 at 18.0 and I-95 at 17.5. Of the 56 routes ranked, 23 sit above the network rate of 9.5, and the median rate is 7.8.

The rate takes a route's average deaths per year and divides by its rate miles, then scales the result to 100 miles. A short road can rank near the top with a modest count. I-4 recorded 167 deaths in five years, fewer than the 340 on I-10's California stretch alone, but it packs them into 131.89 miles. I-17 in Arizona ranks fourth with 131 deaths on 145.95 miles.

The rate is per mile of road, not per mile driven, because FARS does not record how much traffic a road carries. A high rate means more people died on each mile of that Interstate. It does not show whether a single trip on it carries more risk than a trip on a quieter route. At the bottom of the list, I-72 (1.8), I-86 (2.1) and I-29 (2.4) each had fewer than 100 deaths in five years, so a handful of crashes moves them.

Total deaths: I-10 and I-95 lose the most lives

I-10 had more crash deaths than any other Interstate from 2020 to 2024, 1,827, or about 365 a year. I-95 follows with 1,668 and I-40 with 1,380. Together the ten routes in this table account for 11,596 deaths, 56.1% of the five-year total.

Totals mostly track length. I-80 has the sixth-highest count at 1,035, yet its rate of 7.1 ranks 31st and sits below the network figure. I-70 is ninth on deaths with 748 and 33rd on rate. I-90, with the most rate miles at 3,095.33, recorded 608 deaths and a rate of 3.9, 50th of 56. I-45, by contrast, has 372 deaths on 285.03 miles.

Some routes rank high both ways. I-95 is second on deaths and fifth on rate, I-5 is fifth and seventh, and I-10 is first and ninth. So the answer depends on the question: the Interstate that kills the most people is I-10, and the Interstate with the most deaths for each mile of its length is I-45.

State stretches: Florida's I-95 is the deadliest piece of Interstate

Broken out by state, I-95 in Florida has the highest rate of any stretch 50 miles or longer: 30.8 deaths per 100 miles a year across 381.93 miles. Its 588 deaths are 35.3% of all deaths on I-95. Next come I-94 in Illinois at 28.4, I-69 in Texas at 28.3 and I-10 in California at 28.2.

A long route's overall rate can hide a much worse stretch. I-94 ranks 43rd of 56 at 5.6, but its 77.44 miles in Illinois run at 28.4. I-80 averages 7.1 and reaches 23.4 in California. I-15 averages 9.8 and reaches 24.5 in California. I-10's California rate of 28.2 is close to double its route figure of 14.9.

Texas and California each have four of the 25 stretches in this table, and Florida and Georgia three each. I-95 appears four times, in Florida, Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey. Stretches shorter than 50 miles, and those on routes under 100 miles such as I-12, are not in the table, since their rates can jump on one or two crashes.

Deaths by year: a 2021 peak and three years of decline

Crashes on main Interstates killed 3,858 people in 2020 and 4,579 in 2021, a rise of 18.7% in one year. The count then fell three years running: 4,323 in 2022, 4,037 in 2023 and 3,872 in 2024. The 2024 figure is 15.4% below the peak and 0.4% above 2020. Across the five years the average was 4,134 deaths a year.

The 2024 number comes from NHTSA's annual file, which is not yet final, and NHTSA revises each year's file when it publishes the final version, so the count may change. The yearly counts cover main Interstates only, so they will not match national traffic death totals, which include every kind of road.