Arizona Traffic Deaths Fell for a Third Straight Year in 2025 — Friday Remains the Deadliest Day

Arizona traffic fatalities fell to 1,156 in 2025, a 5.2% decrease from 2024 and the third consecutive year of decline, according to statewide crash data released by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) in late August 2026. Total crashes also dropped, from 123,535 in 2024 to 118,052 in 2025 — a 4.4% decrease. But a look at the state's own crash-level records shows one pattern hasn't moved: Friday is still the most crash-heavy day on Arizona roads, and weekend crashes are disproportionately more likely to be fatal than weekday ones.

The 2025 numbers, statewide

ADOT's release breaks out where the decline came from, and where risk is still concentrated:

• Speeding was a factor in 367 fatalities and 19,831 injuries — 31.8% of all traffic deaths and 36.3% of all injuries statewide.
• Alcohol impairment was a factor in 334 fatalities, down from 376 in 2024, an 11.2% decrease. Alcohol-related crashes still account for 28% of all fatal crashes. Male drivers were involved in 72.9% of alcohol-related crashes, and drivers ages 25–34 were the age group most likely to be involved in one, at 31.7%. Nearly half of alcohol-related crashes — 2,397 of them, or 43.57% — happened on nights and weekends.
• 320 fatalities involved a motorist who wasn't using a seatbelt or helmet, alongside 2,807 injuries.
• At least 8,151 drivers involved in 2025 collisions were engaged in distracted driving.
• Motorcyclist fatalities fell 11%, from 218 in 2024 to 194 in 2025.
• Pedestrian crashes totaled 1,999 in 2025, down from the prior year. Bicyclist crashes moved the other way, rising to 1,640.
• Local roads saw more fatalities than state highways — 709 versus 447 — and urban areas recorded more deaths than rural ones, 685 to 471.

When Arizona crashes actually happen

ADOT's statewide release doesn't break fatalities down by day or hour, so this outlet ran that analysis directly against ADOT's crash-level incident records for 2024 — the most recent full year of record-level data currently available. Two patterns stand out.

Friday is the busiest day for crashes, but weekends are the deadliest relative to how many crashes happen. Arizona logged more crashes on Fridays in 2024 than any other day — 20,132 — and more fatalities, 223. But measured as a share of that day's crashes, Sunday was worse: 175 deaths out of 11,980 crashes works out to a fatality rate of roughly 1.5%, versus about 0.8–0.9% on a typical weekday. Saturday's rate ran close behind Sunday's. In short, weekday crashes are more common but comparatively less likely to be fatal; weekend crashes are less common but hit harder.

Crashes cluster in the mid-to-late afternoon. The single most crash-prone hour in 2024 was 3 p.m., with 10,377 crashes statewide, followed closely by 4 p.m. (10,041) and 5 p.m. (9,091) — a stretch that overlaps school dismissal and the start of the evening commute across much of the state.

Why this matters for anyone on the road

None of this changes what to do after a crash — report it, seek medical evaluation, and document the scene — but it does help explain why insurers and safety officials keep returning to the same targets: impaired and distracted driving, and the Friday-through-Sunday window. This outlet has previously covered how the prior year's numbers compared in "Arizona Crash Facts 2024: What ADOT's Statewide Data Shows," and where crashes concentrate geographically in "The 25 Most Dangerous Intersections in Metro Phoenix."

Sources: Arizona Department of Transportation, "Traffic fatalities on Arizona roads decline for third year in a row" (published via ADOT's news release and August 31, 2026 blog summary); day-of-week and hour figures are this outlet's own analysis of ADOT's 2024 crash-level incident records (IncidentDayOfWeek and IncidentHour fields), coded per ADOT's published crash data dictionary.