Kentucky Car Crash Statistics: Official Data for 2024 and 2025, Including Louisville

Reviewed by Larry Forman, Attorney

Every number on this page comes from an official source: the Kentucky State Police (KSP), the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s Office of Highway Safety (KOHS), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), or the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), which analyzes NHTSA’s fatal crash data. We don’t estimate or fill gaps. Each figure shows the year it covers and links to its source.

Behind each of these numbers is a person and a family. We put this page together so drivers, families, reporters and researchers can find reliable Kentucky crash information in one place.

Journalists and researchers: you’re welcome to cite this page. Please link back and cite the original agency source shown for each figure.

Kentucky crash statistics at a glance

Kentucky traffic deaths: the trend

Kentucky’s Office of Highway Safety reports these statewide totals:

Sources: 2018–2024 from the KOHS FY2025 Annual Report, “Kentucky Crash Data / Trends.” 2025 from the KOHS 2025 year-end Daily Fatality Summary (as of May 29, 2026).

What the trend shows:

• 2024 was a big drop. Deaths fell from 814 in 2023 to 707 in 2024. NHTSA’s national overview lists the same change for Kentucky: 107 fewer deaths, a 13% decrease (NHTSA, DOT HS 813 791, April 2026).
• 2025 fell again, based on preliminary counts. KOHS’s year-end summary shows 664 deaths in 2025.
• Crashes didn’t fall the same way. Total crashes were nearly flat from 2023 (117,422) to 2024 (117,661).
• Serious injuries remain high. KOHS counted 2,806 serious injuries in 2024.

How Kentucky compares nationally

IIHS uses NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System to compare states. For 2024 (IIHS, State by State, posted June 2026):

Kentucky’s death rate per person and per mile driven were both higher than the national rate in 2024.

Louisville and Jefferson County crash data

The KSP Collision Facts report breaks crashes down by county. Here are Jefferson County’s figures:

Source: KSP 2024 Kentucky Traffic Collision Facts, “Collisions by County.”

By our calculation from the same report, Jefferson County accounted for about 22% of all reported collisions on Kentucky public roads in 2024 (25,417 of 117,661) and about 16% of traffic deaths (113 of 707).

2025 regional figures (preliminary). KOHS’s year-end 2025 summary doesn’t list counties, but it does list regions:

• KYTC Highway District 5 (Louisville): 130 deaths in 2025
• KIPDA area development district (Bullitt, Henry, Jefferson, Oldham, Shelby, Spencer and Trimble counties): 122 deaths in 2025

Source: KOHS 2025 year-end Daily Fatality Summary, as of May 29, 2026. County list for KIPDA from the KSP 2024 Collision Facts report.

Interstates that run through Louisville (2024, Kentucky totals per route)

Source: KSP 2024 Collision Facts, “Collisions on Interstates and Parkways.” These are totals for each route’s full length in Kentucky, not just the Louisville segments. Statewide, I-75 had the most interstate collisions (3,577).

For more on Louisville roads, see our guides to Dixie Highway crashes and TRIMARC cameras and interstate crashes.

Who is killed in Kentucky crashes

IIHS breaks down 2024 deaths by type of road user:

Source: IIHS, State by State, 2024.

KSP’s crash-report counts for 2024 (definitions differ slightly from IIHS):

• Pedestrians: 97 killed and 856 injured. 23.0% of pedestrians killed or injured were 65 or older.
• Bicycles: 454 collisions involving bicycles, with 13 fatal collisions.
• Motorcycles: 1,665 motorcycle collisions, with 104 people killed and 1,235 injured.

Related pages: motorcycle wreck lawyer · bicycle and pedestrian collision lawyer.

How Kentucky crashes happen

From the KSP 2024 Collision Facts report:

• Collisions between moving vehicles made up about 71% of all collisions (83,260) and accounted for 294 deaths.
• Collisions with fixed objects (trees, poles, guardrails) were about 15% of all collisions, but about 31% of deaths (219).
• Intersection collisions: 36,819, or 31.3% of all reported collisions, including 135 fatal collisions. See who is at fault in Kentucky intersection crashes.
• Deer: 3,397 collisions with deer, with 6 people killed.
• Single- vs. multiple-vehicle crashes: IIHS reports 343 deaths (49%) in single-vehicle crashes and 364 (51%) in multiple-vehicle crashes in 2024.

Factors police listed most often (KSP 2024). Officers can list several factors per crash. These are the number of collisions where each factor appeared at least once:

Source: KSP 2024 Collision Facts, “Contributing Factors — All Collisions.” Percentages are as published in the report, rounded to one decimal. Alcohol and drug rows are as reported by officers (see impaired-driving crashes below).

Seat belts. KOHS counted 211 unrestrained occupants killed in 2024. In its preliminary 2025 summary, 208 people killed were recorded as not wearing a seat belt and 209 as wearing one.

Speed. KOHS reports 152 speeding-related deaths and 4,563 speeding-related crashes in 2024.

Crashes involving drunk and drugged drivers

Impaired drivers don’t only hurt themselves. Other drivers, passengers, pedestrians and cyclists are hurt and killed in these crashes too. Here’s what the official data shows for Kentucky.

Alcohol-impaired-driving deaths (NHTSA). NHTSA counts a death as alcohol-impaired when a driver or motorcycle rider in the crash had a blood alcohol concentration of .08 or higher. NHTSA estimates BAC when test results are missing.

Source: NHTSA, Overview of Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes in 2024 (DOT HS 813 791, April 2026), Tables 5 and 9. FARS 2023 Final File and 2024 Annual Report File.

Kentucky had 23 fewer alcohol-impaired-driving deaths in 2024 than in 2023, a 12% decrease. About 1 in 4 Kentucky traffic deaths in 2024 happened in a crash involving an alcohol-impaired driver.

Alcohol-related crashes (KSP, 2024). KSP counts a collision as alcohol-related when the investigating officer found that a driver had been drinking. Fatal-crash figures are adjusted using FARS blood-alcohol follow-up.

• 3,486 alcohol-related collisions, including 141 fatal and 1,063 injury collisions.
• 152 people killed, 16% fewer than in 2023.
• 1,683 people injured, 7% more than in 2023.
• Police listed alcohol in 2.9% of all collisions but 15.5% of fatal collisions (as reported, before the FARS adjustment).

Drug-involved crashes (KSP, 2024). Officers listed drug involvement in 1,082 collisions, including 73 fatal and 382 injury collisions. 83 people were killed and 677 injured in those crashes. KSP warns that these numbers “may be vastly underreported,” because no reliable roadside drug test exists and police often don’t test for drugs once a driver’s blood alcohol is already over the legal limit.

Source: KSP 2024 Kentucky Traffic Collision Facts, “Alcohol-Related Collisions,” “Contributing Factors — All Collisions” and “Drug-Related Collisions by Area Development District.”

Jefferson County (Louisville). KSP’s county tables (as reported by officers, not FARS-adjusted):

Source: KSP 2024 Kentucky Traffic Collision Facts, “Alcohol-Related Collisions by County” and “Collisions with Drivers Under the Influence of Drugs by County.”

If an impaired driver hurt you. You can bring an injury claim against the impaired driver. In some cases a business licensed to sell alcohol can also be responsible if it served someone it should have known was already intoxicated, under Kentucky’s dram shop law, KRS 413.241. Learn more on our dram shop lawyer page and in our guide to drugged driving and car accident claims.

When crashes happen

From the KSP 2024 Collision Facts report:

• Weekends: 22% of all collisions but 32% of fatal collisions happened on Saturday or Sunday.
• Day of week: Friday had the most collisions (20,118). Sunday had the most fatal collisions (116).
• Month: October had the most collisions, and May had the most fatal collisions.

Rural and urban roads

• KSP: 64% of 2024 collisions happened in urban areas, but 45.1% of fatal collisions (297 of 659) happened in rural areas.
• KSP: 21% of all collisions happened on city streets, but only 5% of fatal collisions did. State-numbered routes had 35% of collisions and 43% of fatal collisions.
• IIHS (FARS-based, using a different urban/rural definition): 62% of Kentucky’s 2024 crash deaths (438) occurred in rural areas.

Truck crashes

• 9,736 collisions in Kentucky in 2024 involved trucks (vehicles registered at 10,000 pounds or more). 99 were fatal and 1,367 involved injuries (KSP 2024).
• Among truck drivers in collisions whose residence was known, 41% were from outside Kentucky (KSP 2024).
• Commercial vehicles were involved in 68 deaths in 2025, up from 65 in 2024 (KOHS 2025 year-end summary, preliminary).

Learn more: truck wreck lawyer · truck black box and ELD evidence.

Hit-and-run crashes

• 12,744 hit-and-run collisions in 2024, including 27 fatal and 1,011 injury collisions (KSP 2024).
• 27 people were killed and 1,290 injured. Of those killed, 12 were pedestrians and 2 were bicyclists.
• 41% of hit-and-run collisions happened on city streets.

See our hit-and-run accident lawyer page.

Teen drivers

• Licensed teen drivers (ages 16 to 19) make up 7% of Kentucky drivers, including learner’s permits (KSP 2024).
• 17,326 teen drivers were involved in collisions in 2024.
• 62 people died in collisions involving a teen driver. 19 of them were the teen drivers themselves.

About this data

Sources.

1. Kentucky State Police and Kentucky Transportation Center, 2024 Kentucky Traffic Collision Facts (Report KTC-26-06, first published Sept. 29, 2025). Calendar year 2024. Also available from the KSP traffic data page.
2. Kentucky Office of Highway Safety, FY2025 Annual Report. Calendar years 2018–2024.
3. Kentucky Office of Highway Safety, 2025 year-end Daily Fatality Summary, as of May 29, 2026. Preliminary 2025 figures. Current-year counts are on the KOHS Daily Fatality Summary page.
4. NHTSA, Overview of Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes in 2024 (DOT HS 813 791, April 2026). Kentucky 2023 (Final File) and 2024 (Annual Report File), including alcohol-impaired-driving deaths (Table 9).
5. IIHS, Fatality Facts: State by State (posted June 2026). 2024 data from FARS.

Why numbers can differ between sources. KSP figures come from police collision reports and cover public roads unless noted. FARS (used by NHTSA and IIHS) counts deaths that occur within 30 days of a crash and uses its own definitions. KOHS totals come from the state highway safety office. Preliminary counts can change as investigations finish. We label every number with its source, and we don’t mix sources within a single table.

What’s not here. If an official figure wasn’t available from these sources, like a Louisville-city-only total or Jefferson County pedestrian counts, we left it out rather than estimate it.

Updates. We’ll update this page when KSP publishes its 2025 Collision Facts report and when NHTSA and IIHS release new data.

If you’ve been hurt in a Kentucky crash

Statistics can’t capture what one crash does to a family. If you or someone you love was injured, here are a few next steps:

• How to get your Kentucky accident report
• Kentucky statute of limitations: every injury deadline
• Car crash lawyer · Wrongful death lawyer · Louisville personal injury lawyer
• More guides in our Resource Center

Have a question about your case? Get a free case evaluation or call 502-931-6788.

This page summarizes publicly available government and research data for general information. It is not legal advice.