Traffic Fatalities Are Down, but the Work of Safer Streets Is Far From Finished

After several punishing years on U.S. roads, state and local transportation officials finally have some real progress to show. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 36,640 people died in traffic crashes in 2025, down 6.7 percent from 2024. This is the nation’s second-lowest fatality rate on record and the lowest annual death toll since before the pandemic. The National Safety Council reached a similar conclusion in its preliminary estimate, putting the annual decline at 12 percent, even as vehicle miles traveled continued to rise.

This national trend matters because it gives public officials something they have not had in recent years: proof that the numbers can move in the right direction. The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) reported that drivers struck and killed 3,024 people walking in the first half of 2025, an 11 percent drop from the same period a year earlier and the largest decline since GHSA began tracking pedestrian fatalities 15 years ago. Those results are encouraging, but they are also a reminder that the country is still trying to climb back from a deadly surge that began in 2020.

For transportation leaders, the most useful lesson is not that one policy or technology solved the problem. Progress has been strongest when agencies have taken a layered approach: redesigning dangerous corridors, improving visibility, expanding protected space for people walking and biking, and reinforcing safer driving behavior with consistent enforcement. Automated enforcement is especially valuable in that mix because it helps agencies extend their reach at the exact locations where dangerous speeding and red-light running are already known risks, without having to station an officer there frequently.

New York City offers one of the clearest examples of progress. The city ended 2025 with 205 traffic deaths, the lowest in a century, and a 19 percent drop from 2024. City officials attributed these gains to a broad Vision Zero strategy that included speed cameras, bus and bike lane expansion, more pedestrian space, and targeted enforcement. The city says speed cameras have reduced deadly speeding by more than 90 percent in some locations, and streets where cameras were recently installed saw 14 percent fewer injuries and fatalities than comparable locations. A scalable safety policy is not a single fix, but a coordinated system that keeps reinforcing the same outcome.

San Francisco tells a similar story. The city recorded a 42 percent drop in traffic deaths in 2025, falling from 43 fatalities in 2024 to 25 in 2025. At the same time, city officials reported a 78 percent reduction in speeding vehicles across the city’s 33 speed camera locations, or about 40,000 fewer speeding vehicles a day. That does not mean the work is finished. The city has already seen half a dozen deaths in 2026. But it does show that behavior can change quickly when cities combine enforcement with engineering, intersection visibility improvements and more disciplined use of safety data.

Hawaii has also offered an encouraging early signal in 2026. The Hawaii Department of Transportation said traffic fatalities were cut in half compared with the same period in 2025, with 15 fewer deaths early in the year. State officials pointed to continued enforcement, public awareness and a focus on safer road design. In the first year of the statewide automated enforcement program, red-light data from Oahu overwhelmingly showed that automated enforcement improved driving behavior and reduced deadly crashes. The program showed a 62 percent decline in daily red-light running violations issued at camera locations and a 76 percent reduction in the major crash rate. Furthermore, 90 percent of violators did not receive a second citation after being issued a first, showing that the program led to ongoing behavior change in cited drivers.

For public-sector leaders, that is another important reminder: Better outcomes are not reserved for the largest mainland cities. Statewide strategies can work, too, when they are sustained and visible. Agencies already know many of their highest-risk corridors. They know where speeding is chronic, where sightlines are poor, where crossings are too long and where serious crashes keep recurring.

The challenge is to move faster from diagnosis to treatment. That means building safer streets, using data more aggressively, and deploying enforcement in ways that are predictable, transparent and tied to clear public goals. It also means measuring near misses, repeat speed violations and citywide behavior change to track progress on a regular basis, not just waiting for annual fatality counts to see results.

For companies that work with public agencies, including Verra Mobility, the opportunity is to help make those strategies more effective and more scalable. Technology should support the public mission, not substitute for it. When automated enforcement is paired with street redesign, better lighting, safer crossings and a data-driven Safe System mindset, it can become a force multiplier for transportation departments trying to protect people with finite resources.