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Data

Reported road accident deaths

See all data and research on:
TransportCauses of Death

What you should know about this indicator

Road accidents are measured in terms of the number of persons injured and deaths due to road accidents, whether immediate or within 30 days of the accident, and excluding suicides involving the use of road motor vehicles. A road motor vehicle is a road vehicle fitted with an engine as the sole means of propulsion and one that is normally used to carry people or goods, or for towing, on the road. This includes buses, coaches, trolleys, tramways (streetcars) and road vehicles used to transport goods and to transport passengers. Road motor vehicles are attributed to the countries where they are registered, while deaths are attributed to the countries in which they occur.

Reported road accident deaths
Number of reported deaths due to road accidents.
Source
OECD (2023); OECD (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
July 1, 2024
Next expected update
July 2025
Date range
1900–2022
Unit
deaths

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Road accidents are measured in terms of the number of persons injured and deaths due to road accidents, whether immediate or within 30 days of the accident, and excluding suicides involving the use of road motor vehicles. A road motor vehicle is a road vehicle fitted with an engine as the sole means of propulsion and one that is normally used to carry people or goods, or for towing, on the road. This includes buses, coaches, trolleys, tramways (streetcars) and road vehicles used to transport goods and to transport passengers. Road motor vehicles are attributed to the countries where they are registered, while deaths are attributed to the countries in which they occur. This indicator is measured in number of accidents, number of persons, per million inhabitants and million vehicles.

Retrieved on
July 1, 2024
Retrieved from
https://data.oecd.org/transport/road-accidents.htm
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
OECD (2024), Road accidents (indicator). doi: 10.1787/2fe1b899-en (Accessed on 01 July 2024)

Passenger transport covers inland movement of passengers by rail and road, measured in passenger-kilometres for International Transport Forum (ITF) member countries. Data are collected from Ministries of Transport, national statistical offices and other institutions designated as the official data source.

Retrieved on
July 3, 2024
Retrieved from
https://data-explorer.oecd.org/vis?fs[0]=Topic%2C1%7CTransport%23TRA%23%7CAnnual%20transport%20trends%23TRA_ATT%23&pg=0&fc=Topic&bp=true&snb=6&df[ds]=dsDisseminateFinalDMZ&df[id]=DSD_TRENDS%40DF_TRENDSPASS&df[ag]=OECD.ITF&df[vs]=1.0&dq=.A.....&to[TIME_PERIOD]=false&vw=tb&pd=%2C
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
OECD 2024, Annual passenger transport, Trends in the Transport Sector, https://data-explorer.oecd.org/vis?fs[0]=Topic%2C1%7CTransport%23TRA%23%7CAnnual%20transport%20trends%23TRA_ATT%23&pg=0&fc=Topic&bp=true&snb=6&df[ds]=dsDisseminateFinalDMZ&df[id]=DSD_TRENDS%40DF_TRENDSPASS&df[ag]=OECD.ITF&df[vs]=1.0, accessed on July 3rd, 2024.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline
Notes on our processing step for this indicator

"The majority of series data is sourced from the OECD Statistics. For particular countries, historical data (before 1970) have been sourced from specific national records as referenced below. Germany: Statistisches Bundesamt (https://www.destatis.de/EN/FactsFigures/EconomicSectors/TransportTraffic/TrafficAccidents/Tables_/RoadTrafficAccidents.html) New Zealand: https://web.archive.org/web/20200116174845/https://www.transport.govt.nz/mot-resources/road-safety-resources/road-deaths/annual-number-of-road-deaths-historical-information/ Australia: https://web.archive.org/web/20220525052753/https://www.bitre.gov.au/publications/ongoing/road_deaths_australia_annual_summaries and https://web.archive.org/web/20210501075840/https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/publications/2008/pdf/Ann_Stats_2007.pdf Scotland: https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/39307/sct05174402361.pdf Northern Ireland: https://web.archive.org/web/20190801195213/https://www.psni.police.uk/inside-psni/Statistics/road-traffic-collision-statistics/ United States: https://www.bts.gov/content/transportation-fatalities-mode"

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Reported road accident deaths”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser (2021) - “Transport”. Data adapted from OECD. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/road-deaths-over-the-long-term [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

OECD (2023); OECD (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

OECD (2023); OECD (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Reported road accident deaths” [dataset]. OECD, “Annual road fatalities, injured, injury crashes 2023”; OECD, “Annual passenger transport” [original data]. Retrieved June 17, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/road-deaths-over-the-long-term