Truck Accident Deaths by State: Where the 5,472 Fatalities Concentrate

All 50 states ranked by 2023 NHTSA truck-crash deaths. Ten states hold 49% of the toll: the full ranking, why it skews South, what it means for claims.

Truck crash deaths are not spread evenly across the country. We pulled the state-level fatality counts from NHTSA’s Large Trucks: 2023 Data tables — the same dataset behind our 50-state settlement guides — and ranked all 50 states. The concentration is stark: 10 states account for 49.1% of the 5,472 people killed in large-truck crashes in 2023, and Texas alone accounts for 13.3%.

The top 20 states, ranked

Deaths in crashes involving large trucks, 2023 (NHTSA):

Three things stand out in the full ranking:

Texas is its own category. With 730 deaths, Texas nearly doubles second-place California (392). Combine the top three — Texas, California, Florida — and their 1,463 deaths exceed the bottom 25 states combined (1,070). If you wanted to reduce US truck-crash deaths, you would start on Texas highways.

The toll skews South and toward freight corridors. Eight of the top 15 states are in the South. That tracks the freight map: I-10, I-20, I-35, I-40, I-75, I-81 and I-95 carry the country’s densest truck traffic through exactly these states, and NHTSA’s national data adds that 55% of fatal large-truck crashes happen in rural areas and 25% on interstates. Long rural highway miles at full speed are where trucks kill.

Population explains a lot, and then it doesn’t. New York, with nearly 20 million residents, recorded 120 deaths — the same as Missouri (6.2 million) and Louisiana (4.6 million). Dense urban states with slow traffic and strong rail/port infrastructure see proportionally fewer high-speed truck fatalities than sparse states crossed by freight corridors. It’s the miles and the speed, not just the people.

The full 50-state table

Rank	State	Deaths	Rank	State	Deaths
1	Texas	730	26	Kansas	89
2	California	392	27	Wisconsin	85
3	Florida	341	28	Washington	79
4	North Carolina	192	29	Iowa	78
5	Illinois	190	30	Maryland	72
6	Georgia	188	31	Minnesota	71
7	Pennsylvania	180	32	Utah	63
8	Ohio	167	33	New Jersey	62
9	Arizona	155	34	Idaho	62
10	Tennessee	154	35	Nebraska	60
11	Indiana	143	36	Nevada	56
12	Alabama	137	37	West Virginia	45
13	Oklahoma	129	38	Wyoming	41
14	South Carolina	122	39	Connecticut	37
15	Virginia	120	40	Montana	34
16	New York	120	41	South Dakota	27
17	Missouri	120	42	North Dakota	26
18	Louisiana	120	43	Massachusetts	22
19	Kentucky	114	44	Maine	18
20	Mississippi	107	45	New Hampshire	11
21	Michigan	101	46	Delaware	10
22	New Mexico	98	47	Alaska	10
23	Oregon	97	48	Vermont	7
24	Arkansas	93	49	Rhode Island	3
25	Colorado	91	50	Hawaii	2

Source: NHTSA, Large Trucks: 2023 Data, state tables. State counts sum to 5,471; the national figure of 5,472 includes cases not attributed in the state table.

Who dies in these crashes

The state ranking tells you where; the national numbers tell you who. In 2023, 70% of the people killed in large-truck crashes were occupants of other vehicles, 18% were truck occupants, and 12% were pedestrians or cyclists. A loaded tractor-trailer can weigh 20 to 30 times as much as the car it hits, and 71% of large trucks in fatal crashes were heavy trucks over 26,000 lb. The physics is the reason truck claims are valued differently than car claims — the injuries run worse, and the insurance behind the truck runs larger.

What geography means for a settlement

Where the crash happened shapes the claim in three concrete ways:

The state’s law applies. The filing deadline ranges from 1 year (Louisiana — also #18 on the death ranking) to 6 years, and four jurisdictions still bar recovery entirely at 1% plaintiff fault. Our state guides cover the rules for the 19 states at the top of this ranking.
Venue shapes value. Jury verdict patterns differ enough between states that adjusters price them in — that’s the state factor in our settlement calculator. A catastrophic-injury case tried in a plaintiff-friendly Texas or Georgia venue is negotiated differently than the same facts in a conservative one.
Corridor crashes produce commercial defendants. Deaths concentrate on interstates and rural freight routes, where the truck almost always belongs to a motor carrier subject to FMCSA rules — hours-of-service logs, maintenance records, drug testing. Those federal violations are frequently what wins the case.

FAQ

Which state has the most truck accident deaths?

Texas, with 730 deaths in large-truck crashes in 2023 — 13.3% of the national total and nearly double second-place California (392).

Which state has the fewest?

Hawaii, with 2 deaths in 2023, followed by Rhode Island (3) and Vermont (7). Small size, low freight volume, and no long rural interstate corridors keep the numbers low.

Are truck accident deaths going up or down?

Down year over year: the 2023 national total of 5,472 was an 8% decrease from 5,969 in 2022, per NHTSA. The longer-term picture is worse — 2023 remains about 38% above the 2009 low. See our full statistics roundup.

Does a crash in a high-fatality state mean a higher settlement?

Not by itself. High-fatality states are simply where exposure is highest. Settlement value turns on injury severity, liability evidence, insurance, and the state’s law and verdict patterns — several top-10 states (like Texas and Georgia) do tend to produce large verdicts, but the ranking above measures deaths, not payouts.

Where does this data come from?

NHTSA’s annual Large Trucks Traffic Safety Facts publication (2023 data, published 2025), the federal census of fatal crashes. We compiled the state table ourselves; anyone can verify the counts against NHTSA’s published tables.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. Fatality counts are as published by NHTSA and describe crash involvement, not legal fault.