AZ Law Now · Data Report · Arizona's crash record, 2020-2024
The Most Dangerous Cities in Arizona
We ranked Arizona's cities and counties by how many people die on their roads, per resident. Tucson, not Phoenix, came out first, and of every US city of half a million people, only Memphis is deadlier to drive. Here is the full ranking, county by county and mode by mode.
traffic deaths per 100,000 Tucson residents a year, 2020 to 2024.
#1 most dangerous city in Arizona · #2 of every US city of 500,000-plus
Ask which Arizona city is the most dangerous and most people say Phoenix. The crash record says Tucson. We measured it ourselves, from the federal fatality files, city by city and county by county, with every number you can copy and use.
Computed · per-capita rate
Tucson, not Phoenix, is the most dangerous city in Arizona
24.95 traffic deaths per 100,000 Tucson residents a year, the highest of any Arizona city
We ranked Arizona's largest cities by how many people die on their roads, measured against how many people live there. Tucson came out first, and it is not close.
From 2020 through 2024, 675 people were killed on Tucson's roads, a rate of 24.95 deaths per 100,000 residents a year. That runs well ahead of Phoenix (17.75) and Glendale (17.33), and more than four times the rate in Gilbert (5.46).
Phoenix records far more deaths in raw numbers, 1,428 to Tucson's 675. But Phoenix holds roughly three times as many people, so per resident, Tucson is the deadlier city to be on the road in.
The universe is stated on purpose. We ranked every Arizona city above 100,000 residents, drawn straight from Census population, not a list we hand-picked to put Tucson on top.
Two honest caveats travel with the number. The death count is where a crash happened inside the city, so it captures commuter and through traffic, not only residents. And it is a five-year cumulative count, so it reads about five times higher than a single-year rate would. We apply the same construction to every city.
Computed · cities over 500k
Of every big US city, only Memphis is deadlier to drive
#2 of all 35 US cities with 500,000 or more residents, ranked by traffic deaths per resident
Tucson's road toll is not just an Arizona problem. Set it against every large city in the country and it still rises near the top.
Of every US city with 500,000 or more residents, only Memphis is deadlier to drive than Tucson. Tucson's 24.95 deaths per 100,000 residents a year ranks #2 of about 35 big cities, behind Memphis (35.55) and ahead of Detroit (21.95) and Albuquerque (19.87).
We restrict the field to cities of 500,000-plus on purpose. It removes the small-place noise that makes a tiny town look deadly on a handful of crashes, and it gives Tucson a fair, big-city peer set. Among genuine large cities, Tucson sits second in the nation.
Computed · counties over 1M
No big county loses more pedestrians per resident
4.57 pedestrian deaths per 100,000 Pima residents a year, tied for the highest of any million-person US county
Move from the city to the county around it and the picture gets worse for the people most exposed, the ones on foot.
Across all 48 US counties with a million or more residents, Pima County, which holds Tucson, has the highest pedestrian death rate per resident, 4.57 per 100,000 a year. It edges San Bernardino, California (4.54), in a statistical dead heat, so we call it a tie at the very top, co-#1, not a clean solo lead.
For scale, Maricopa County, metro Phoenix, sits mid-pack in the same ranking at 3.51. A pedestrian in Pima County dies at a higher rate per resident than in any other major county in America, Maricopa included.
Our 25-year statewide pedestrian analysis shows the same trend on a longer timeline: Arizona's pedestrian toll bent sharply upward after 2014, and Pima sits at the leading edge of it.
Computed · counties over 1M
And Pima is deadlier to drive than Maricopa
16.39 traffic deaths per 100,000 Pima residents a year, vs 13.38 in Maricopa
The county-to-county contrast carries into driving too, and it cuts against the assumption that Phoenix owns Arizona's worst roads.
Among US counties of a million or more residents, Pima County is the 4th-deadliest in the nation to drive, at 16.39 deaths per 100,000 residents a year. San Bernardino, Fresno, and Duval (Jacksonville) sit just above it.
Maricopa County ranks 7th in that same group, at 13.38. Per resident, Pima's roads are about 22 percent deadlier to drive than Maricopa's. The smaller, quieter-seeming metro is the more dangerous one.
Computed · cities over 100k
Tucson ranks near the top in every way you can travel
#4 Tucson is the 4th-deadliest US city for cyclists per resident, of all cities over 100k
This is not one bad number hiding a safe city. Break Tucson's deaths down by how people were traveling and it ranks among the worst large cities in every mode.
Of all US cities above 100,000 residents, Tucson ranks #4 for cyclist deaths per resident (39 killed), #5 for motorcyclist deaths (116 killed), and #8 for pedestrian deaths (210 killed) from 2020 to 2024.
Whether you walk, ride a bike, ride a motorcycle, or drive, Tucson sits in the worst handful of large American cities for your odds. The danger is not concentrated in one kind of traveler. It runs across all of them.
Computed · crash locations
The toll spans the whole county, not one corner
764 fatal crash sites mapped across Pima County and metro Tucson, 2020 to 2024
Map every fatal crash in Pima County over five years and the pattern is clear. The danger concentrates through central Tucson, then spreads across the whole county.
The 764 sites cluster densest along Tucson's major arterials and the I-10 corridor, but they reach north to Marana and Oro Valley, south to Sahuarita and Green Valley, and out into the rural stretches between.
That spread is the finding. There is no single intersection to fix that would move these numbers. The risk follows the road across the entire metro, which is why the per-resident rate, not any one location, is the story.
Computed · per mile driven
In one of the deadliest states to drive in America
1.73 Arizona traffic deaths per 100 million miles driven, 29% above the national average
Tucson and Pima sit inside a state that is among the most dangerous to drive in the country, measured not just per resident but per mile actually driven.
Arizona records 1.73 traffic deaths for every 100 million vehicle-miles driven, the 5th-worst rate of any state and 29 percent above the national average of 1.34. That answers the through-traffic objection: the roads are deadly per mile, not only per resident.
Arizona's motorcyclists carry an outsized share of it. They make up roughly 4.5 percent of the state's registered vehicles but around 18 to 20 percent of its traffic deaths, a near four-fold over-representation that tracks with Tucson's #5 ranking for motorcyclist deaths.
The receipts
Sources and method
Every count, rate, and ranking on this page is computed by AZ Law Now from named federal primary sources. Nothing here is an aggregator figure or an estimate.
Deaths come from the NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), the federal record of every traffic death, for 2020 to 2024, counted at the person level. A pedestrian, cyclist, or motorcyclist death uses the federal person-type and vehicle-body-type codes. The population denominators are the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey 5-year population estimates (2022) for cities, and Census population estimates for counties.
Rates are a five-year cumulative death count over the resident population, per 100,000. Because the count spans five years, the rate reads about five times higher than a single-year rate would. The same construction is applied identically to every city and county.
Each ranking states its universe. The Arizona-city ranking covers every Arizona place above 100,000 residents. The big-city ranking covers every US place above 500,000 residents, a restriction that removes the small-sample noise of tiny towns, and the county rankings cover every US county above 1 million residents.
Pima County's pedestrian rate (4.57) is a statistical tie with San Bernardino (4.54), so we report it as co-#1, not a solo lead.
One figure is measured at the state grain, not the city grain: Arizona's 1.73 traffic deaths per 100 million vehicle-miles driven comes from FARS deaths over Federal Highway Administration vehicle-miles-traveled data, and reconciles to the NHTSA-published national rate. A city-level per-mile rate is not derivable from that data, so we keep the per-mile figure at the state level and report cities and counties per resident.
A crash is counted where it happened, so a city or county figure captures commuter and through traffic, not only residents. These are computed per-capita figures, not NHTSA-published statistics. The analysis reproduces from the raw federal files, so any figure here rebuilds from the record.
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. (2025). Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), 2020 to 2024 national file [Data set]. U.S. Department of Transportation. www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov
- U.S. Census Bureau. (2023). American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, 2022 (place and county population). census.gov/programs-surveys/acs
- Federal Highway Administration. (2023). Highway Statistics 2022, vehicle-miles traveled (VM-2). U.S. Department of Transportation. fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics.cfm
Questions, answered
Frequently asked
What is the most dangerous city in Arizona?
By traffic deaths per resident, Tucson. From 2020 through 2024, 675 people were killed on Tucson's roads, a rate of 24.95 deaths per 100,000 residents a year, the highest of any Arizona city above 100,000 residents. That is well above Phoenix (17.75) and Glendale (17.33). The figure is a computed per-capita rate from NHTSA FARS crash data and US Census population, not an NHTSA-published statistic, and it measures road deaths inside the city limits.
Is Phoenix or Tucson more dangerous to drive?
Tucson, per resident. Phoenix records more traffic deaths in raw numbers (1,428 to Tucson's 675 from 2020 to 2024), but Phoenix holds about three times as many people. Adjusted for population, Tucson's death rate is 24.95 per 100,000 residents a year versus Phoenix's 17.75, so per resident Tucson is the more dangerous city to be on the road in. At the county level, Pima County is also deadlier to drive than Maricopa, 16.39 versus 13.38 per 100,000.
How does Tucson compare to other US cities for traffic deaths?
Of every US city with 500,000 or more residents, only Memphis is deadlier to drive than Tucson. Tucson's rate of 24.95 traffic deaths per 100,000 residents a year ranks #2 of about 35 large US cities, behind Memphis (35.55) and ahead of Detroit and Albuquerque. Tucson also ranks #4 for cyclist deaths, #5 for motorcyclist deaths, and #8 for pedestrian deaths per resident among all US cities above 100,000 residents. Figures are computed from NHTSA FARS and US Census data.
Which Arizona county is the most dangerous for pedestrians?
Pima County, which holds Tucson. Of all 48 US counties with a million or more residents, Pima has the highest pedestrian death rate per resident, 4.57 per 100,000 a year from 2020 to 2024. It is effectively tied for first with San Bernardino, California (4.54), so it is most accurate to call Pima co-#1. For comparison, Maricopa County sits mid-pack in the same ranking at 3.51.
Why is Tucson so dangerous to drive in?
This page reports the measured public-safety numbers, not the causes. What the data shows is that the toll is high across every mode (driving, walking, cycling, and motorcycling) and spread across the whole county rather than at one intersection, and that Arizona overall ranks 5th-worst in the nation for traffic deaths per mile driven, 29 percent above the national average. The reasons behind those numbers are a separate question this analysis does not answer.
Where does this data come from?
Every figure on this page is computed by AZ Law Now from named federal primary sources: the NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), the federal record of every traffic death, for 2020 to 2024; the US Census Bureau's population estimates for the denominators; and the Federal Highway Administration's vehicle-miles-traveled data for the per-mile state rate. The per-capita rates and the rankings are ours. They are computed figures, not NHTSA-published statistics, and each ranking states the population floor and the set it ranks.
Hurt in a crash on an Arizona road?
A road's documented crash history can be part of your case. Our Arizona car crash guide breaks down your rights, the deadlines, and what to do next.
Read the Arizona car crash guide