The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently announced that traffic deaths fell to record lows in 2025.
According to NHTSA’s preliminary report about the early estimate of traffic fatalities, Washington’s traffic deaths are also on a decline. An estimated 644 people were killed in traffic in 2025, which is a decrease of 11.8% from 2024, when 730 people were killed.
Mark McKechnie, the policy and communications director for the Washington Traffic Safety Commission (WTSC), says the national numbers may change slightly, but the improvement is a relief.
“We’re relieved to see the data from 2024 and some of the preliminary data we’re looking at from 2025 that looks like the decrease continued. I say relief because leading up to that, it was very concerning,” McKechnie said. “We saw a 33-year high in traffic fatalities in 2023, and they had increased 47% compared to 2015. And so, we are seeing a decrease now, but we’re still not back to where we started before COVID.”
McKechnie said there are a lot of records needed to compile the data. WTSC usually releases its preliminary data in late April or early May.
As to why there has been a decline, he said that first, you need to look at the high-risk behaviors that increased during the pandemic. There were increases in speeding when the roads were relatively empty, as well as an increase in substance abuse and impaired driving.
“Overall, we saw a 61% increase between 2015 and 2023 in impaired driving. Also, alcohol, which is still our main drug involved in impaired driving, that increased 58% from 2020 to 2023. We know from surveys that cannabis use increased and that young adults were more likely to drive within a few hours of using cannabis,” McKechnie said. “ And then in terms of the decrease, we think and hope that our mental well-being has improved somewhat as we’ve come out of the pandemic. But the other thing that changed is traffic enforcement.”
He said the state is slowly starting to see enforcement increase.
His message for drivers is to focus on avoiding the four behaviors that account for a lot of fatal crashes in our state: impaired driving, excessive speed, distraction, and not wearing seat belts.