What Are The Most Common Fatal Accidents?

Most Americans die from auto accidents, not from cancer or heart disease. A recent study by the National Safety Council estimated that in 2019 alone, 34,078 Americans died in motor vehicle crashes, and that number has remained relatively stable over the past decade. However, those numbers don't include deaths caused by medical errors, which the CDC estimates kill up to 98,000 people a year. For comparison, the CDC reports that heart disease and cancer killed more than half a million people in 2017.

This makes sense. Death from car crashes isn't typically a medical emergency. Doctors don't come to your rescue when your car crashes into a tree; they respond to the patient who has a heart attack or who develops cancer. According to a report from the National Safety Council, most car crashes aren't even related to alcohol, drugs, or distracted driving. Rather, the most common causes of fatal car crashes include speeding, distracted driving, and drivers falling asleep.

So why are cars still the leading cause of accidental death? Most fatal car crashes are a result of bad luck. There's no way to predict who is going to die, and whether or not they'll die in a car crash. In many cases, drivers involved in car crashes are lucky to escape without any injuries.

The odds of dying from a car crash are the same regardless of the driver's age, sex, race, or socio-economic status. Drivers aged 65 and older are more likely to be killed in a car crash, but the likelihood of dying doesn't increase much after that. Similarly, black drivers are more likely to be killed in a car crash than white drivers, but they're also more likely to be killed in any given year than white drivers.

In general, the risk of dying in a car crash is about 1 in 100. This means that out of every 100,000 drivers, one will be killed in a car crash. That's a pretty low chance, but not so low that it's statistically impossible.

When looking at the statistics, it's also important to consider the risk of being injured in a car crash. While the odds of being killed are very low, the odds of being injured in a car crash are about 50 percent. This means that one in two drivers involved in car crashes will be injured, and that about 50 percent of those injured will be hospitalized.

The odds of being injured in a car crash are slightly higher for men than women. In fact, men are slightly more likely to be killed in a car crash, and slightly more likely to be injured. Women, on the other hand, are more likely to be injured than killed in a car crash.

The risk of being injured in a car crash also varies by age. Teenagers and young adults have the highest risk of being injured in a car crash, followed by middle-aged adults, then older adults. The risk of being injured in a car crash is also highest for drivers between 20 and 24 years old.

The risk of being injured in a car crash is lower for African Americans than whites. On average, white drivers are about 25 percent more likely to be injured in a car crash than African Americans, but that gap shrinks to about 13 percent when comparing the risk of being killed.