Read the geography first. Los Angeles city is part of Los Angeles County. County figures include the city. Do not add the two totals. These are police-reported crash records, not a count of every collision.
1. Fewer deaths did not mean fewer serious injuries
Los Angeles city recorded 315 traffic deaths in 2024, down from 343 in 2023. That is an 8.2% decrease. Serious injuries increased from 1,741 to 1,878, a 7.9% rise.
The combined number of people killed or seriously injured rose from 2,084 to 2,193, up 5.2%. A headline about deaths alone would miss that increase in serious harm.
| Year | Fatal/injury crashes | Fatal/serious crashes | People killed | People seriously injured |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 21,845 | 1,693 | 292 | 1,570 |
| 2021 | 12,807 | 2,059 | 338 | 1,928 |
| 2022 | 11,266 | 2,018 | 368 | 1,832 |
| 2023 | 10,859 | 1,888 | 343 | 1,741 |
| 2024 | 11,675 | 1,997 | 315 | 1,878 |
Crashes count incidents. Deaths and injuries count people. One crash can hurt more than one person. The charts use different scales and start at zero. The 2020 pandemic year is included for context; changes do not establish why crashes or injuries changed.
2. County deaths fell while serious injuries rose
Across Los Angeles County, deaths fell from 814 in 2023 to 773 in 2024, a 5.0% decrease. Serious injuries rose from 4,182 to 4,440, a 6.2% increase. The county total includes Los Angeles city, other cities and unincorporated areas.
| Year | Fatal/injury crashes | Fatal/serious crashes | People killed | People seriously injured |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 45,340 | 3,867 | 769 | 3,579 |
| 2021 | 41,460 | 4,718 | 840 | 4,404 |
| 2022 | 40,503 | 4,593 | 868 | 4,267 |
| 2023 | 41,029 | 4,444 | 814 | 4,182 |
| 2024 | 42,749 | 4,636 | 773 | 4,440 |
Los Angeles city accounted for 42.1% of the county’s people killed or seriously injured in 2024: 2,193 of 5,213. This is a share of recorded harm. It is not a comparison of risk per resident or per trip.
3. People walking accounted for more than half of city traffic deaths
In Los Angeles city, 162 pedestrians were killed in 2024. That is 51.4% of the city’s 315 traffic deaths. A further 577 pedestrians were seriously injured. Together, 739 pedestrians were killed or seriously injured, up from 686 in 2023.
| Geography | Road user | Killed | Seriously injured | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles city | Pedestrians | 162 | 577 | 739 |
| Los Angeles city | Bicyclists and bicycle passengers | 12 | 129 | 141 |
| Los Angeles city | Motorcyclists and passengers | 31 | 329 | 360 |
| Los Angeles County | Pedestrians | 318 | 1,022 | 1,340 |
| Los Angeles County | Bicyclists and bicycle passengers | 22 | 340 | 362 |
| Los Angeles County | Motorcyclists and passengers | 90 | 802 | 892 |
These selected categories do not include every road user. They do not show how many trips each group made, so the counts cannot rank risk by mode of travel.
For help after an injury, see our Los Angeles pedestrian accident, bicycle accident and motorcycle accident pages.
4. Where the county recorded the most serious harm
The city of Los Angeles had the largest count of people killed or seriously injured in the county’s 2024 records, followed by unincorporated county areas and Long Beach. The table describes the location coded in the crash records, not where the injured person lived.
| Place | People killed | People seriously injured | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles | 315 | 1,878 | 2,193 |
| Unincorporated county areas | 144 | 623 | 767 |
| Long Beach | 40 | 267 | 307 |
| Lancaster | 32 | 122 | 154 |
| Santa Clarita | 8 | 75 | 83 |
| Palmdale | 19 | 61 | 80 |
| Pasadena | 9 | 67 | 76 |
| Santa Monica | 3 | 62 | 65 |
| Compton | 7 | 52 | 59 |
| Pico Rivera | 3 | 55 | 58 |
Unincorporated county areas are a group of areas, not a city. This is not a “most dangerous cities” ranking. The comparison does not adjust for population, miles traveled, street length or reporting differences. All county places are included in the download. Street and intersection rankings require a separate analysis of individual crash locations.
5. Why the main analysis ends in 2024
UC Berkeley’s September 28, 2026 update identifies 2024 records as final. Its 2025 and 2026 records are provisional and incomplete. Direct comparisons of provisional years with final years can give a false impression of improvement or decline.
The separate 2025 table below is a snapshot only. It is excluded from all trend charts and change calculations above. We do not project a 2026 full-year total.
| Geography | People killed | People seriously injured | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles city | 338 | 2,093 | Provisional; incomplete |
| Los Angeles County | 705 | 4,460 | Provisional; incomplete |
Provisional counts can change as CHP processes more reports or corrections. See TIMS data-update notices.
6. Sources, definitions and downloads
We extracted the Los Angeles city and county series from UC Berkeley SafeTREC’s TIMS SWITRS Summary on November 7, 2026. The source identifies September 15, 2026 as the CHP processing date. We retained final 2020–2024 records for the main analysis.
- Coverage: Police-reported fatal and injury crashes recorded in SWITRS. Property-damage-only crashes are excluded.
- Geography: Los Angeles city and Los Angeles County as coded in the source. County totals include the city.
- Units: “Crashes” are incidents. “Killed” and “injured” are people. Road-user tables count people.
- Serious injuries: We subtract fatalities from the source’s combined fatalities-and-serious-injuries count. This is the same person-count calculation used by the TIMS summary interface.
- Changes: Percentage change equals (later count ÷ earlier count − 1) × 100, rounded to one decimal place.
- Checks: Each geography-year key is unique. City figures do not exceed county figures. All 2024 county place counts sum exactly to the county totals. Deaths plus serious injuries equal the combined count.
- Limits: Reporting practices, travel levels, data processing and coverage can affect comparisons. The analysis does not establish causes, legal fault, risk per trip or statistical significance.
Why these figures can differ from LAPD figures
This page uses CHP SWITRS records distributed by TIMS. It does not use the retired LAPD “Traffic Collision Data from 2010 to Present” dataset. The City of Los Angeles states that the old dataset no longer receives updates. Different sources and extraction dates can yield different counts. We have not reconciled each underlying record, so we do not claim a specific reason for each difference. Do not join the sources into one trend.
Download the tables and methods (ZIP)
Includes four CSV tables, exact selected source rows, source dates and definitions. No personal information or individual crash records are included.
Research and analysis: TORKLAW. General information about recorded traffic crashes. This page does not provide legal advice or predict the result of a claim. See TORKLAW in Los Angeles for firm and office information.