America's truck deaths rose 17%. Arizona's rose 66%.

The Finding

Arizona’s large-truck deaths rose 66% over the last five years. The nation’s rose 17%. Both numbers come from the same federal crash record, over the same two five-year periods, and the gap between them is the story.

In the 2015 to 2019 period, 471 people died in Arizona crashes that involved a large truck. In the 2020 to 2024 period, that count reached 781. Nationally, the same comparison moves from 23,961 deaths to 28,029.

Put those two increases next to each other and Arizona’s runs nearly four times the national pace.

Why It Matters

A national number can hide a local one. Truck traffic on Arizona’s interstates feeds the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and the freight that crosses the state runs through the same corridors where people commute and drive their kids to school.

When the death count grows nearly four times faster here than across the country, the risk isn’t spread evenly. It’s concentrated on the roads Arizonans use every day.

How We Counted

Every figure here is computed by AZ Law Now from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System, the federal census of fatal crashes, for 2015 through 2024.

We counted fatal crashes that involved at least one large truck, using NHTSA’s vehicle body-type codes 60 through 79, then summed the deaths in those crashes, counting each death once per crash. Because the record identifies fatal crashes only, every count on this page is a fatal-crash count, not a count of all truck crashes.

The Size of the Gap

The clearest way to see the gap is side by side. Arizona’s death count grew 66% between the two periods. The national count grew 17%. The Arizona bar runs nearly four times the length of the national one.

Source: NHTSA FARS 2015-2024. Computed by AZ Law Now.

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The Year-by-Year Picture

The surge is a completed shift, not an open-ended climb. Arizona’s yearly death count held between 88 and 99 through the back half of the 2010s, then rose sharply: 125 in 2020, 152 in 2021, and 184 in 2022, the deadliest year of the decade.

After that peak it declined, to 167 in 2023 and 153 in 2024.

That decline matters to how the finding should be read. The 66% figure compares two five-year blocks, and the later block still holds far more deaths than the first even after the recent dip.

What the record shows is a step up to a new, higher level that peaked in 2022, not a line still rising today.

Source: NHTSA FARS 2015-2024. Deaths counted once per crash. Computed by AZ Law Now.

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What This Means for Arizonans

The measured record describes a state that absorbed a larger share of the country’s rising truck-crash toll than its size would suggest. Even with the count down from its 2022 high, the last five years held 310 more truck-crash deaths than the five before them.

For a family, the statute matters as much as the statistic. Arizona gives an injured person two years from the date of a crash to file a personal injury claim under ARS 12-542, and a wrongful death claim carries the same two-year deadline under ARS 12-611.

When a commercial carrier is involved, the vehicle’s logs, inspection history, and maintenance records are the evidence that decides a case, and those records don’t keep forever.

Anyone weighing what happened after a serious truck crash can start with a case review, and our Arizona truck crash law guide walks through how fault and recovery work.

The Bottom Line

The same five years added 17% to the nation’s truck deaths, 66% to Arizona’s.