{"main_topic":"health","sub_topic":"injury","topic":"traffic_fatalities","key":"health/injury/traffic_fatalities","version":"1.0.0","year_min":2000,"year_max":2024,"year_gaps":[],"update_frequency":"annual","detail_levels":["counties","states"],"default_detail":"counties","path_template":"health/traffic_fatalities/year={year}/{detail}.parquet","grain":["year","county_fips","tract_geoid"],"title":"Traffic Fatalities (NHTSA FARS)","summary":"People killed in motor-vehicle crashes on public roads in Georgia and each county, by crash location, with the number of fatal crashes.","description":"People killed in motor-vehicle traffic crashes in Georgia and in each of its 159 counties, 2000-2024, from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), the census of every crash on a public road in which someone died within 30 days. The headline is the number of people killed; the number of fatal crashes they died in is served beside it. Counted in the county where the crash happened. Read from NHTSA's Final Files 2000-2023 and the 2024 Annual Report File (preliminary); file_status marks each year's release.","explorer":true,"search_aliases":{"en":["car crash deaths","traffic deaths","road death toll","dying on roads","traffic mortality","fatal crashes","killed in crashes","motor vehicle deaths","FARS","NHTSA crashes"],"es":["muertes de tráfico","muertes en carretera","muerte en carretera","accidentes mortales","choques fatales","mortalidad vial","defunciones de tránsito","muertos en choques","FARS","accidentes de carro"]},"source":"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), national CSV files, crash file (accident.csv): Final Files 2000-2023 and the 2024 Annual Report File (preliminary)","source_url":"https://www.nhtsa.gov/file-downloads?p=nhtsa/downloads/FARS/","endpoint":"/api/v1/health/traffic_fatalities","columns":[{"name":"year","type":"integer","role":"year","nullable":false,"label":"Year","short_description":"","description":"Calendar year of the crash (FARS YEAR, equal to the file's data year). A person who died within 30 days of a late-December crash counts in the crash's year. Every year is an NHTSA Final File except the latest, the preliminary Annual Report File (see file_status).","valid_values":null,"example":2024,"unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"county_fips","type":"string","role":"fk_county","nullable":true,"label":"County FIPS","short_description":"","description":"5-digit FIPS code of the county where the crash happened ('13' + FARS's 3-digit COUNTY code), NULL on the Georgia row. Every county has a row every year, 0 when it had no fatal crash. Crashes whose FARS county code names no county are counted in the Georgia row only (listed in limitations).","valid_values":null,"example":"13121","unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":"Georgia row: the state total, including crashes whose county is unknown.","key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"tract_geoid","type":"string","role":"fk_tract","nullable":true,"label":"Tract GEOID","short_description":"","description":"Always NULL: crashes are counted by state and county only. Kept for the health domain's standard key shape.","valid_values":null,"example":null,"unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":"Always NULL (no tract figures in this topic).","key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"num_deaths","type":"integer","role":"metric","nullable":true,"label":"Traffic Deaths","short_description":"People killed in motor-vehicle crashes on public roads that happened in the place during the year.","description":"People killed in motor-vehicle crashes on public roads that happened in the place (Georgia, or the county) during the year: the sum of FARS's FATALS, the people who died within 30 days of the crash, in a vehicle or not (pedestrians and cyclists included), over the year's crash records. Counted where the crash happened, not where the person lived. 0 on a county row is a real zero: no fatal crash in the county that year.","valid_values":null,"example":1403,"unit":"count","value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":"Never NULL: FARS publishes every fatal crash with no suppression, and a county with no fatal crash in a year has a row with 0.","key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"num_fatal_crashes","type":"integer","role":"metric","nullable":true,"label":"Fatal Crashes","short_description":"","description":"Fatal crashes that happened in the place during the year: the number of FARS crash records (one per crash in which at least one person died within 30 days). Every fatal crash killed at least one person, so num_deaths is never below it.","valid_values":null,"example":1312,"unit":"count","value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":"Never NULL: FARS publishes every fatal crash with no suppression, and a county with no fatal crash in a year has a row with 0.","key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"file_status","type":"string","role":"categorical","nullable":false,"label":"File Status","short_description":"Whether the year's counts are final or preliminary (annual_report_file: NHTSA's Annual Report File, to be revised).","description":"Release status of the year's FARS file, the same on every row of a year: final (NHTSA's Final File) or annual_report_file (the Annual Report File, NHTSA's preliminary release of the latest year, replaced by the Final File about a year later, when counts change). Describes the year, not part of the row's key; filter it to 'final' to leave out preliminary counts.","valid_values":["final","annual_report_file"],"example":"final","unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null}],"key_metric":"num_deaths","numeric_filter_columns":["num_deaths","num_fatal_crashes"],"usage":"Star-schema fact table at state and county grain. Join the counties dimension on county_fips; tract_geoid is always NULL. The Georgia row (county_fips NULL) is the state total, including crashes whose county is unknown; never add it to the county rows. County rows cover all 159 counties every year, 0 where no fatal crash happened. num_deaths and num_fatal_crashes add across counties and years. Filter file_status = 'final' to leave out the preliminary year. For a rate per resident, divide by a population from the census topics (our calculation). Read directly with DuckDB over Parquet.","limitations":"Counted where the crash happened, not where the people killed lived, so county figures differ from death-certificate counts by county of residence (such as DPH OASIS motor vehicle deaths). 2024 is NHTSA's preliminary Annual Report File (file_status 'annual_report_file'): its counts will change when NHTSA replaces it with the Final File, about a year later. FARS is a census of fatal crashes, so every county has a row every year and a 0 is a real zero (4 to 13 counties a year had no fatal crash). Final files are revised too: NHTSA re-posts past years' files (the files read here were posted 2026-02-04 for 2000-2020, 2026-04-01 for 2022 and 2023, and 2026-06-24 for 2021), and the 2023 national total moved from 40,901 to 41,025 when it became final. County rows fall short of the Georgia row by exactly 5 crashes (6 deaths) whose county FARS left unknown (code 0 in 2001, 2004, 2005 and 2006; code 999 in 2002), counted in the Georgia row only. Only crashes involving a motor vehicle in transport on a trafficway open to the public, in which someone (a vehicle occupant or not, such as a pedestrian or cyclist) died within 30 days, are counted; crashes on private property such as driveways and parking lots are not. A death is counted in the year of the crash. Counts only, no rate: counties differ greatly in population and traffic, so compare them per resident with a population from the census topics (a rate so made is our calculation, not NHTSA's). Small counties have few deaths and swing from year to year. Deaths come in clusters (up to 7 in one crash, though about 9 in 10 fatal crashes killed one person), so they are not independent events and a test that treats them as such overstates its certainty. These files are as retrieved 2026-10-24. tract_geoid is always NULL.","null_semantics":{"suppressed_to_null":false,"zero_is_real":true},"available_years":[2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006,2007,2008,2009,2010,2011,2012,2013,2014,2015,2016,2017,2018,2019,2020,2021,2022,2023,2024],"schema_hash":"cc2e79e89f9decc59c534b64375bfb24574bb148b627f1d637d42c4e28d239b9","tags":["health","national highway traffic safety administration","traffic_fatalities"],"granularity_description":"One row per year, county_fips, tract_geoid (geography columns are NULL at higher aggregation levels).","example_queries":[{"description":"Latest year (2024), counties detail","query":"SELECT * FROM traffic_fatalities WHERE year = 2024 LIMIT 100"},{"description":"Filter by file_status = final","query":"SELECT * FROM traffic_fatalities WHERE file_status = 'final' AND year = 2023 LIMIT 100"}],"foreign_keys":[{"column":"county_fips","target_object":"counties","target_columns":["county_fips"],"attribute_columns_added":["county_name"],"scope":"global"},{"column":"tract_geoid","target_object":"tracts","target_columns":["tract_geoid"],"attribute_columns_added":["tract_name"],"scope":"global"}],"filters":[{"param":"year","kind":"year_exact","type":"integer","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"year_min","kind":"year_range","type":"integer","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"year_max","kind":"year_range","type":"integer","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"detail","kind":"detail","type":"string","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":true,"values":["counties","states"],"default":"counties"},{"param":"county_fips","kind":"foreign_key","column":"county_fips","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"tract_geoid","kind":"foreign_key","column":"tract_geoid","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"file_status","kind":"categorical","column":"file_status","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":true,"values":["final","annual_report_file"],"has_total":false,"total_value":null,"requires_single_value":false,"nullable":false,"null_filter_token":null}],"filter_hints":[],"non_additive":[],"partitions":[],"value_implications":[],"year_meaning":null,"pooled_rates":[],"series_breaks":[],"year_window":null,"pooled_min_count":null,"values_endpoint":"/api/v1/health/traffic_fatalities/values"}