Alcohol-Related Crashes Were 4.6% of Arizona Crashes but 28% of Traffic Deaths in 2024

Alcohol-related crashes were under 5 percent of Arizona's crashes in 2024 but accounted for more than a quarter of its traffic deaths. The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) counted 5,520 alcohol-related crashes in 2024, in which 347 people were killed and 3,576 were injured. Those 347 deaths were 28.26% of the 1,228 people killed in all Arizona motor vehicle crashes that year.

The numbers

All figures below come from ADOT's 2024 Motor Vehicle Crash Facts report (Table 1-1 and the crash breakdowns in the report's front matter).

Measure	2023	2024	Change
Alcohol-related fatalities	358	347	-3.07%
Alcohol-related injuries	3,972	3,576	-9.97%
All traffic fatalities	1,308	1,228	-6.12%
All traffic injuries	55,011	54,426	-1.06%

In 2024, ADOT reported 5,520 alcohol-related crashes out of 121,107 crashes statewide, which ADOT puts at 4.56% of all crashes. It also reported 312 alcohol-related fatal crashes out of 1,117 fatal crashes in total, or 27.93%.

How much deadlier is an alcohol-related crash?

Dividing deaths by crashes shows the gap. Statewide in 2024, there were 1,228 deaths across 121,107 crashes, or about 10 deaths per 1,000 crashes. In alcohol-related crashes, there were 347 deaths across 5,520 crashes, or about 63 deaths per 1,000 crashes. By this measure, an alcohol-related crash produced roughly six times as many deaths per crash as the typical Arizona crash.

One caution on method: ADOT counts people killed, and one crash can kill more than one person, so these ratios are deaths per crash, not the share of crashes that were fatal. Both sides of the comparison use the same measure, so the gap between them holds.

Deaths fell, but alcohol's share rose

Alcohol-related deaths fell by 11, from 358 to 347. That is a smaller drop than the statewide decline in all traffic deaths, which fell by 80. As a result, alcohol-related deaths made up a slightly larger share of the total in 2024 than in 2023: by our calculation, 28.26% in 2024 versus 27.37% in 2023 (358 of 1,308).

Injuries moved the other way. Alcohol-related injuries fell nearly 10 percent, faster than the roughly 1 percent decline in all injuries. By our calculation, alcohol-related crashes accounted for about 6.6% of injuries in 2024, down from about 7.2% in 2023.

Where this fits in the larger picture

This pattern echoes what we found for people outside vehicles. In Arizona Pedestrians Were 1.7% of Crashes but 21% of Traffic Deaths in 2024, a small share of crashes produced a much larger share of deaths. The same logic applies here: the type of crash, more than the number of crashes, drives the fatality count.

What the data does not say

ADOT's crash report records what was reported, not why. These figures do not assign fault in any crash and do not establish that alcohol caused any particular death. They also do not tell us how many people were driving impaired but were never recorded as such. Year-to-year comparisons can shift as ADOT finalizes its reporting.

Methodology

Counts of crashes, deaths, and injuries are taken directly from ADOT's 2024 Crash Facts report. The 4.56% crash share and the 27.93% fatal-crash share are as stated by ADOT. The 28.26% and 27.37% death shares, the 2023-to-2024 percentage changes in total deaths and injuries, the injury shares, and the deaths-per-1,000-crashes figures are our own arithmetic on those published figures: 347 / 1,228, 358 / 1,308, 3,576 / 54,426, 3,972 / 55,011, 347 / 5,520, and 1,228 / 121,107.