7,971 people 65 and older died in US crashes, 19% of road deaths

In 2022, 7,971 people aged 65 and older were killed in traffic crashes across the United States, the highest count for that age group since the federal government began collecting fatal-crash data in 1975. They made up 19 percent of the 42,514 people who died on American roads that year, even though adults over 65 were about 17 percent of the population.

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The figures come from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, whose National Center for Statistics and Analysis publishes a Traffic Safety Facts sheet on older people every few years. The most recent edition, covering 2022 data, was released in August 2024, and it counts everyone killed, not just people behind the wheel.

What the 7,971 count actually contains

The agency states the finding plainly: “In 2022 there were 7,971 people 65 and older killed in traffic crashes in the United States.” That tally covers every kind of road user in NHTSA’s older-population report, so it should not be read as a count of older drivers. Drivers account for 5,024 of the deaths, while occupants of all kinds make up 6,195, and 5,244 of those occupants were riding in passenger vehicles. Pedestrians are the second large group, with 1,497 people 65 and older killed on foot, and another 206 died on bicycles.

The 19 percent share is measured against the national total of 42,514 deaths in 2022, a figure drawn from the agency’s separate overview of motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2022. Both documents rely on the same underlying census of fatal crashes, so the share and the count are internally consistent and can be compared directly. Put another way, roughly one in five people who died on U.S. roads in 2022 was 65 or older, while that age group was closer to one in six residents. The gap between those two shares is the core of the older-road-user safety question, and it is the reason NHTSA publishes a separate sheet for the group.

A rising toll and a faster-growing population

NHTSA reports a 6 percent increase in older-adult deaths between 2021 and 2022. Over a longer span the change is steeper: the toll stood at 5,716 in 2013, which makes the 2022 figure 39 percent higher. Part of the explanation is demographic, because the population 65 and older reached about 57.8 million, and a larger group exposed to the road produces more deaths even if each person’s risk holds steady.

Demographics do not account for all of it. The fatality rate per 100,000 older residents rose to 13.79 in 2022 from 13.39 in 2021, and from 12.81 in 2013. The rate was highest among people 85 and older, at 16.45 per 100,000, the top figure for any older age band the report examined. Injuries moved far less than deaths: an estimated 268,622 people 65 and older were hurt in crashes in 2022, about 11 percent of all injured people, and that number rose only about 1 percent from the year before. Older people therefore make up a larger share of the dead than of the injured.

How older-adult crashes differ in time and place

The report’s crash profile departs from the national average. Among fatal crashes involving older people, 72 percent happened in daylight, compared with 46 percent of all fatalities, and 70 percent fell on weekdays, against 58 percent overall. Two-thirds, or 67 percent, involved more than one vehicle, versus 46 percent for all deaths. For vehicles driven by older drivers who were killed, the front of the vehicle was the most common point of first impact, at 59 percent.

Behavior also differs. Among killed passenger-vehicle occupants with known restraint use, 69 percent of those 65 and older were buckled, compared with 45 percent of those under 65. Only 10 percent of older drivers in fatal crashes had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 or higher, against 24 percent of drivers aged 21 to 64. Older pedestrians were killed in a distinct pattern as well: 73 percent of those deaths happened away from intersections, compared with 85 percent for pedestrians under 65.

Where the underlying data come from

All of these numbers trace to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, a national census that records every crash on a public road in which someone dies within 30 days. NHTSA describes the program on its FARS page, and the older-population sheet is one of several demographic slices the agency cuts from it each year. Because the data year is 2022, the sheet describes a past snapshot, and later years may move the count in either direction.

Readers who want practical guidance can start with NHTSA’s older-driver safety resources, and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety keeps its own older-driver topic page for those comparing sources. Both are reference pages for the topic rather than the origin of the 2022 numbers above, which come only from the two NHTSA documents linked earlier.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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