About the data

How every state, county, city and ZIP report on this site is built, and what the numbers can and cannot tell you.

Sources

FMCSA crash file (Motor Carrier Management Information System, via data.transportation.gov): police-reported crashes involving a truck over 10,000 lb that meet FMCSA's reporting threshold (a death, an injury taken for treatment, or a vehicle towed away) and that states send to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. We use crash date and time, state, county, city, road, weather, road surface, lighting, deaths, injuries and cargo body type. A garbage truck is a crash whose cargo body type is "garbage/refuse". Carrier names are never shown.

NHTSA FARS (Fatality Analysis Reporting System): every crash on a public road where someone died within 30 days. We keep crashes involving a large truck (truck body types with a gross vehicle weight over 10,000 lb or unknown), 1982–2024. Exact locations are available from 2001.

US Census Bureau: 2024 Gazetteer files for places, county subdivisions, counties and ZIP code areas, and 2024 population estimates. ZIP household income and home values come from a licensed ZIP code database.

How the numbers work

  • Headline counts cover crashes since 2015.
  • Reporting gaps: a year counts as incomplete for a state or county when its crash count falls below half of its 2015–2019 average. Incomplete years are greyed out on charts and left out of rates, shares and comparisons. The current year is always partial.
  • Rates are truck crashes per 100,000 residents per year over the complete years.
  • Risk score (0–100): how a county ranks among all US counties on fatal crashes involving a large truck per resident, 2020–2024. 85 and up is High, 60–84 Elevated, 30–59 Moderate, under 30 Low. Cities and ZIPs show their county's score.
  • Small places: FMCSA records a city name for each crash. When a place has fewer than 200 matched crashes since 2015, its page uses its county's numbers for patterns and says so. The same applies when more than 20% of the county's crash reports leave the city blank (New York leaves most of them blank).
  • Fatal crashes nearby: city and ZIP pages count FARS crashes within 10 miles of the centre (15 miles for cities over 100,000 people).
  • Minimum samples: percentages and "worst month" findings need at least 20 crashes; a "most dangerous road" needs at least 5 fatal crashes in the area and a clear lead over the next road.

What the text says, and what it does not

Every sentence on these pages is generated from the numbers above. The reports state what the data shows, such as the share of crashes on icy roads or in the morning rush. They do not guess at causes.

Questions or corrections: contact CurbWaste.