Fatality Facts 2023: Yearly snapshot
Cited in 2 Likelier entries (2 risks, 0 decisions).
Used in 2 entries
For each citing entry, the verbatim excerpt and Likelier's calculation notes (how the source's number was converted to the lifetime-probability framing) are shown below. Click through to read the full claim ledger.
-
- Statistic
40,901 US motor vehicle crash deaths in 2023; 12.2 deaths per 100,000 people; 1.26 deaths per 100 million miles traveled
“"A total of 40,901 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2023."”
Calculation notes
IIHS publishes US population-weighted crash death rates derived from NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). The 12.2 deaths per 100,000 figure is used directly as our native annual hazard. Lifetime = 1 − (1 − p_annual)^years, where p_annual = 0.000122 and years is 59 (remaining adult life) for the lower bound and ~79 (full life expectancy) for the upper bound.
Independence note: IIHS is a third-party insurance-industry analysis built on NHTSA's FARS data, the same upstream used by the NHTSA report cited below. Treat the two as a presentation layer and the primary government report on one shared dataset rather than independent counts.
Source date: 2023-12-31 · Accessed: 2026-04-11
-
- Statistic
Among fatally injured passenger vehicle occupants age 13+ in 2023, only 50% were belted; nationwide observed belt use was 91% in 2024; 24% of fatally injured rollover occupants were belted
“"Among people 13 and older killed in crashes while riding in passenger vehicles in 2023, only half were belted"”
Calculation notes
If 91% of occupants are belted yet only 50% of fatalities are belted, the unbelted-to-belted fatality rate ratio is (50%/9%) / (50%/91%) ≈ 10.1. This is the observed overrepresentation, not the causal effect (confounders inflate it), but it confirms the 45% causal estimate is conservative rather than aggressive.
Independence note: Both IIHS sources draw from NHTSA FARS. They are not independent datasets but present different analytical layers (effectiveness vs descriptive fatality profile).
Source date: 2023-12-31 · Accessed: 2026-04-11
Also cited in these entries
Unbelted crash death
How much more likely are you to die in a car crash without a seatbelt?