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Texas Motor Vehicle Traffic Crash Facts Calendar Year 2017


  • The Fatality Rate on Texas roadways for 2017 was 1.37 deaths per hundred million vehicle miles traveled. This is a 2.14% decrease from 2016.
  • Texas experienced a decrease in the number of motor vehicle traffic fatalities. The 2017 death toll of 3,727 was a decrease of 1.77% from the 3,794 deaths recorded in 2016.
  • There were 14,282 serious injury crashes in Texas in 2017 with 17,535 people sustaining a serious injury*.
  • The annual vehicle miles traveled in Texas during 2017 reached 272.989 billion, an increase of 0.64% over the 271.263 billion traveled in 2016.
  • Fatalities in traffic crashes in rural areas of the state accounted for 52.37% of the state’s traffic fatalities. There were 1,952 deaths in rural traffic crashes.
  • Single vehicle, run-off the road crashes resulted in 1,311 deaths in 2017. This was 35.18% of all motor vehicle traffic deaths in 2017.
  • In 2017 there were 763 people killed in crashes occurring in intersections or related to an intersection.
  • There were 553 people killed in head-on crashes in 2017.
  • There were no deathless days on Texas roadways in 2017.
  • There was one crash that resulted in 6 or more fatalities in 2017.
  • Friday, November 17th was the deadliest day in 2017 with twenty-six (26) persons killed in traffic crashes. July was the deadliest month with 352 persons killed.
Based on reportable crashes in 2017:
  • 1 person was killed every 2 hours 21 minutes
  • 1 person was injured every 2 minutes 4 seconds
  • 1 reportable crash occurred every 59 seconds
  • Of all persons killed in vehicles where restraint usage was applicable and usage was known in 2017, 39.98% were reported as not restrained when the fatal crash occurred.
  • 254,415 persons were injured in motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2017.
  • There were 499 motorcyclists (operators and passengers) killed in 2017. Fifty one percent (51%) of motorcyclists killed were not wearing helmets at the time of the crash.
  • Pedestrian fatalities totaled 615 in 2017. This is a 9.56% decrease from 2016.
  • Pedalcyclist fatalities totaled 57 in 2017. This is a 13.64% decrease from 2016.
  • In 2017, there were 1,046 people killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes where a driver was under the influence of alcohol. This is 28% of the total number of people killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes.
  • During 2017, more DUI – Alcohol crashes were reported in the hour between 2:00 am and 2:59 am than any other hour of the day. Also, more of these crashes occurred on Sunday than any other day of the week.
  • In 2017, there were 451 people killed in crashes involving distracted driving. This is a 2% decrease from 2016.
  • There were no fatalities caused by a bridge collapse in 2017.
  • Effective with the 2010 Annual Summary reports, the definition of “Serious Injury†was changed to only include “Incapacitating Injuryâ€. Therefore, Serious Injury data cannot be compared to prior years.

Information contained in this report represents reportable data collected from Texas Peace Officer’s Crash Reports (CR-3) received and processed by the Department as of May 06, 2019.