Report Reveals Deadliest States for Truck Crashes

Texas had the largest number of truck-related fatalities in the nation by a wide margin, according to a new infographic. 

The Lone Star State recorded 643 fatal truck crashes in 2020 — the most recent year data is available — according to an infographic by the Truck Safety Coalition. It lists the 12 states with the highest incidents of truck-involved fatalities, based on National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data. 

California was a distant second, with 398 fatalities in 2020, while Florida was the only other state over 300, with 344 recorded deaths. 

The rest of the top 10 were as follows: 

• Georgia – 234 

• Tennessee – 179 

• Illinois –178 

• North Carolina – 170 

• Indiana – 153 

• Ohio – 149 

• Alabama – 141 

• Pennsylvania – 133 

• South Carolina – 132 

Preliminary NHTSA data for 2021 estimates that large truck fatalities in 2021 were 13 percent higher than in 2020, reaching 5,600 deaths. 

The research included a ranking of states with the most deaths per 100,000 population; only two states appeared on both lists. In order, the states with the highest number of truck-related fatalities per-capita were Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Arkansas, Montana, Alabama, Idaho, Mississippi, North Dakota, Kentucky, Tennessee and South Carolina.