Report: 15, 10 and 5 freeways are deadliest in state, as traffic deaths rise

Southern California freeways remain deadly as roadway fatalities soar, according to a report released Monday, July 1, three days before a record number of motorists hit the road for the Independence Day holiday.

Fatalities from car crashes rose a whopping 17% in 2022 in California, as compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2018, reported ConsumerAffairs’ Journal of Consumer Research in its data-driven study “Deadliest Roads in California.”

In a Top 10 list of California freeways with the most fatalities, the Inland Empire holds the first and second spots. A stretch of the 15 Freeway in San Bernardino County led with 48 deaths as “the deadliest road in California,” while the 10 Freeway in Riverside County was second, recording 31 deaths, the report found.

Fatalities on those two freeways jumped from 33 and 25 in 2018, respectively.

The 10 Freeway in Los Angeles County was eighth with 14 fatalities and the 5 Freeway in Orange County was fourth deadliest, with 16 deaths. The 5 Freeway in San Diego County was third, with 21 deaths. The others on the list were in Central and Northern California.

San Bernardino County was the deadliest for driving among the state’s 10 most populous counties, with 20.4 fatalities per 100,000 people in 2022, the report stated.

These counties followed: Fresno (19.5); Riverside (13.9); Sacramento (13.6); Los Angeles (8.8); San Diego (8.7); Orange (7.3); Alameda (6.3); Santa Clara (5.9) and Contra Costa (5.8). All Southern California counties posted increases above 2018 and 2020, except for San Diego.

Total roadway deaths reached 858 in Los Angeles County in 2022, including all fatalities on all roadways including freeways, thoroughfares and small streets, said Dieter Holger, data reporter with ConsumerAffairs on Monday.

Data for the report was gathered from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 2022 numbers, the latest available. The report focused on car crashes on freeways, highlighting the death toll by county.

As to the reasons noted by the NHTSA for the fatal crashes, the leading cause was speeding. Excessive speeds far outweighed drinking and distracted driving, the report found.

Speeding was involved in around 31% of deadly car crashes in California in 2022, up from 26% in 2018.

Traffic safety experts say going too fast and driving recklessly began during the early days of the pandemic when freeways and roadways were wide open, leading to an increase in car crash fatalities. The problem hasn’t gone away with the pandemic, the report stated.

“It’s a crisis that needs to be reversed,” Timothy Weisberg, deputy director of marketing and public affairs at the California Office of Traffic Safety, told ConsumerAffairs.

A UC Berkeley study found that there were fewer vehicle miles traveled in California during the first half of 2020 — during the pandemic shutdowns — but the rate of severe traffic crashes in the state rose 15%. The reason: fewer drivers going much faster on more open roadways, resulting in crashes with serious injuries and/or fatalities.

In 2022, the number of fatal car crashes rose despite a drop in the state’s population, from 39.5 million in 2018 to about 39 million in 2022, Holger said.

“Freeways are designed to go fast, but unfortunately people abuse that and go faster,” said Damian Kevitt, executive director of Streets Are For Everyone, a nonprofit working toward safer streets in L.A. County.

“And when you have very little enforcement, you have a deadly situation,” he added.

His group has documented drivers going above the speed limit on Los Angeles and L.A. County streets that have resulted in record numbers of deaths of pedestrians and cyclists. “We know speed is the primary factor for all traffic fatalities,” he said.

Drinking while driving, defined as a driver who fails a blood alcohol test, was responsible for 13% of the fatal crashes. That is down from 24% in 2018, the report stated. “That is a positive development. It is trending down,” Holger said.

Also, the report noted that distracted driving as a reason for a fatal crash has hovered at a little more than 3% since 2018. However, 140 people were killed in California in crashes involving a distracted driver in 2021, an increase of 27% from 2020, reported the California Office of Traffic Safety.

A 2023, state OTS survey found 74% of Californians said distracted driving (texting or talking) was their main traffic safety concern.

Kevitt says the report’s statistics for both driving while intoxicated and distracted driving are inaccurate because police agencies do not do a good job of measuring either one.

He said testing for drugs is rare. Also, there is no established amount of marijuana in a driver’s system that is considered illegal.

“Almost no one will admit to distracted driving as a cause for a collision,” Kevitt said. Plus, California doesn’t allow devices in cars that record how often a driver picks up a cell phone to dial a phone number, text, or view a video.

In October 2023, 16-year-old pedestrian Felipe Avalos was struck and killed in South Los Angeles by a car driven by a man who was allegedly watching a TikTok video, Kevitt said. “If you just look around, you can easily say 25% to 40% of the drivers are texting or looking at their phones,” he added.