Philadelphia crash statistics and trends

Philadelphia is one county out of Pennsylvania's 67, but on the state's own books it carries the heaviest crash toll in the Commonwealth. If you were just in a wreck here, the numbers below explain why Philadelphia streets look the way they do, and where the city is actually spending money to change that.

The 2024 numbers

In 2024, Philadelphia County logged 7,413 reportable crashes: 133 of them fatal, 5,013 causing injury, and 2,267 property-damage-only, according to PennDOT's 2024 Pennsylvania Crash Facts & Statistics report.¹ Those crashes killed 137 people, 12.2% of every traffic death recorded statewide, from a county that holds about 12% of Pennsylvania's population.¹ No other county came close: Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) recorded 73 traffic deaths in 2024, and Bucks County recorded 47.¹

Five years of PennDOT's county data show fatalities bouncing rather than falling in a straight line: 166 deaths in 2020, 133 in 2021, 143 in 2022, 135 in 2023, and 137 in 2024.¹ The city tracks its own separate figures through its Vision Zero program, and for 2024 the two datasets diverge. PennDOT's county total (137, up from 135) reads differently from the city's own dashboard, which recorded 120 traffic fatalities in 2024, down from 123 in 2023, alongside an 18% drop in serious injuries (from 442 to 362).² The gap likely comes down to what counts as a "Philadelphia" crash: PennDOT's county figure includes limited-access highways like I-95 and I-76 that cut through the city, while Vision Zero's tracking is built around city streets. Either way, neither dataset shows the kind of clear year-over-year improvement city officials are aiming for.

Pedestrians carry the heaviest toll

Philadelphia recorded 51 pedestrian deaths in 2024, down from 56 in 2023 and 64 in 2022, but still far more than any other county in the state; Allegheny County, the next-highest, had 16.¹ Of those 51, 32 were people between 15 and 59 years old and 15 were 60 or older, and another 906 pedestrians were injured across all age groups.¹ The city's own Vision Zero Action Plan 2030 puts the imbalance in stark terms: nearly two-thirds of Philadelphia's traffic fatalities involve someone outside a vehicle (walking, cycling, or riding a motorcycle), even though those modes make up less than 10% of all crashes citywide.³

Seat belts and alcohol

Only 50% of people involved in Philadelphia crashes in 2024 were properly restrained, compared with a statewide average of 82%, one of the widest seat belt gaps of any county in Pennsylvania.¹ Alcohol-related crashes killed 18 people in Philadelphia in 2024, up slightly from 17 the year before.¹ Both numbers matter for anyone hurt here: unrestrained occupants and impaired drivers tend to turn ordinary collisions into serious-injury or fatal ones.

Where the crashes cluster

Philadelphia's own crash data shows that 12% of the city's streets account for 80% of traffic deaths and serious injuries, a set of corridors the city calls the High Injury Network. The network was just recalculated using 2019 to 2023 crash data to guide the new Action Plan.³⁴ Roosevelt Boulevard, the 12-lane arterial (U.S. 1) that carries traffic through North and Northeast Philadelphia with local and express lanes running side by side, sits at the center of that network.⁵ Automated speed enforcement cameras went live on the Boulevard in June 2020, and since then speeding violations are down more than 95%, fatal and serious injury crashes are down 21%, and crashes involving pedestrians are down 50%, an estimated 36 lives saved between June 2020 and February 2023.² PennDOT is now rebuilding the Boulevard's crossovers at five locations between Cottman Avenue and Red Lion Road, widening them and adding new signals, ADA curb ramps, and crosswalks, part of a joint city, PennDOT, and SEPTA effort called Route for Change that runs in phases through 2031 and beyond.⁶⁵

Broad Street is the other corridor the city keeps coming back to. Under the Vision Zero Action Plan 2030, Philadelphia is expanding automated speed enforcement onto:

• PA Route 611 (Broad Street and Old York Road)
• Route 13 (Baltimore, West Hunting Park, and Frankford Avenues)
• Route 2001 (Erie and Torresdale Avenues)
• Route 2016 (Allegheny Avenue)
• Route 1004 (Richmond Street and Delaware Avenue)

The plan also adds pedestrian median islands on Race, Chestnut, and Broad Streets, camera-ready enforcement at seven newly approved school zones, and a tenth neighborhood "slow zone."³ Beyond enforcement cameras, the city's broader Complete Streets redesigns (projects that add protected bike lanes, medians, and signal timing changes at specific corridors) have cut fatal and serious injury crashes by 34% and total injury-causing crashes by 20% at the locations where they've been completed.²

Pennsylvania in context

Statewide, PennDOT logged 110,765 reportable crashes in 2024, which killed 1,127 people and injured 66,950 more, the second-lowest fatality count since PennDOT started keeping records in 1928.¹ That works out to about 303 crashes a day, one traffic death roughly every eight hours, and a fatality rate of 1.13 deaths per hundred million vehicle-miles traveled, below the 1.24 rate NHTSA had projected nationally for the same year.¹ Philadelphia's density and traffic volume mean the county absorbs a share of that toll well out of proportion to its geography, even if not much out of proportion to its population.

If you're hurt in a Philadelphia crash

Given how low seat belt use runs here and how often the victims are people on foot or on a bike rather than behind a wheel, injuries from Philadelphia crashes tend to be more severe than a typical suburban fender-bender. Get medical care first, get a copy of the police report, and photograph the scene, vehicles, and any visible injuries before evidence disappears. Note whether you were near a High Injury Network corridor like Roosevelt Boulevard or Broad Street, since that history can matter to how a claim gets evaluated. If you're trying to figure out what your case is worth or whether to talk to an attorney, the thatcarhitme.com legal directory is a place to start.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, 2024 Pennsylvania Crash Facts & Statistics, https://www.pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/penndot/documents/travelinpa/safety/documents/2024_cfb_linked.pdf

2. City of Philadelphia, Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems, "Philly Stat 360 and Vision Zero Release New Dashboard on Reducing Traffic Deaths in Philadelphia," March 24, 2025, https://www.phila.gov/2025-03-24-philly-stat-360-and-vision-zero-release-new-dashboard-on-reducing-traffic-deaths-in-philadelphia/

3. City of Philadelphia, "City of Philadelphia Releases Vision Zero Action Plan 2030," November 25, 2025, https://www.phila.gov/2025-11-25-city-of-philadelphia-releases-vision-zero-action-plan-2030/

4. Vision Zero Philadelphia, Vision Zero Action Plan 2030, https://visionzerophl.com/plans-and-reports/action-plan-25-30/

5. City of Philadelphia, Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems, "Roosevelt Boulevard: Route for Change," https://www.phila.gov/programs/complete-streets/projects/roosevelt-boulevard-route-for-change/

6. City of Philadelphia, Department of Streets, "Roosevelt Blvd Bus Stations Completed; Construction to Begin on Crossover Improvement Project," February 6, 2026, https://www.phila.gov/2026-02-06-roosevelt-blvd-bus-stations-completed-construction-to-begin-on-crossover-improvement-project/