A New Racial Disparity in Traffic Fatalities

Abstract Motor vehicle accidents kill approximately 40,000 people annually in the United States and are the second largest cause of preventable deaths after overdoses. In 2015, for the first time in nearly forty years, the rate of motor vehicle fatalities for Black Americans exceeded that of white Americans. By 2020, the gap in death rates stood at 34%, accounting for approxi- mately 4,000 excess deaths between 2014 and 2020. This paper is the first to document the emergence of this disparity. Using data on fatal traffic accidents from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and the Centers for Disease Control and other administrative and survey data, we study the evolution of race-specific rates of fatal vehicle crashes. We document two potential causes: increases in time spent driving and drug use. Several other common causes of accidents, such as speeding and driving without a seat belt, do not exhibit race-specific increases.