Crash Statistics & Trends in Salt Lake City

Salt Lake County saw more traffic crashes than any other county in Utah in 2024, and it wasn't close. Statewide, Utah logged 59,437 crashes, 27,094 injuries, and 277 deaths that year, a crash roughly every 8.8 minutes and a death every 31.6 hours.¹ Nearly 39 percent of those killed weren't wearing a seatbelt, even though statewide seatbelt use runs about 90.7 percent, and 2024's 53 motorcycle deaths were a 15-year high.² Preliminary 2025 numbers show 264 deaths statewide, down from 277 and the lowest count since 2019, even though teen fatalities jumped to 31 from 18 the year before and motorcycle deaths rose another 32 percent on top of that already bad year.³

Salt Lake County alone accounted for 26 percent of all Utah traffic deaths from 2020 through 2024, more than double the next-highest county.⁴ That share tracks with the county's population, but state safety planners also rank Salt Lake among the counties with the highest rates of speed-related and impaired-driving fatal crashes in Utah, and among the counties where motorcycle deaths concentrate: 41 of the state's 53 motorcycle fatalities in 2024 happened in the five most urban counties, Salt Lake included.⁴²

Where the crashes cluster

Nearly half of all Utah crashes, 47 percent, happen at an intersection.¹ In the Salt Lake Valley that risk isn't spread evenly. It clusters on a short list of roads residents already know to watch.

A 2026 analysis by Southern Utah University researchers Sangjun Park and Roger Carter mapped more than 750,000 Utah road segments using UDOT crash data from 2021 through 2025 and built a public tool, Street Explorer, that lets residents check risk by location.⁵ The three most dangerous roads it identified statewide are all inside the Salt Lake City metro:

• I-15 in South Salt Lake
• Porter Rockwell Boulevard in Bluffdale
• Bangerter Highway in West Valley City

Bangerter Highway's fix is to remove the intersections

UDOT's response on Bangerter Highway has been to design out the intersections rather than manage them. The state has converted 10 signaled crossings along the highway into freeway-style interchanges, funded by more than $600 million the Legislature set aside in 2021, on the reasoning that removing stoplights removes the T-bone and rear-end collisions that come with cross traffic.⁶ Completed interchanges run from 6200 South in Taylorsville up through 12600 South in Riverton, with 4700 South, 9800 South, 13400 South, and 2700 West added since then. A final piece linking 4100 South in West Valley City to California Avenue in Salt Lake City isn't scheduled until 2028.⁶ UDOT projects the full build-out will cut the drive from I-15 in Draper to Salt Lake City International Airport by up to 20 minutes, on top of the safety gains.⁶

Redwood Road and the pedestrian numbers

Redwood Road tells a different kind of story, one about pedestrians rather than freeway interchanges. Salt Lake City logged 22 pedestrian deaths in 2022, the year it began pushing 20 mph limits on streets with heavy foot traffic. That number fell to 14 in 2023 and has averaged 13 a year since, roughly a one-third drop from the 2022 baseline, according to city crash data reported by Utah public radio station KUER.⁷ Even so, Redwood Road (signed as State Route 68 outside city limits) was the deadliest single street for pedestrians in the county in 2025, tied to 3 of the county's 15 pedestrian deaths that year.⁷ Countywide, Salt Lake County's pedestrian collision rate ran 3.9 per 10,000 residents in 2023, well above the statewide rate of 2.9, based on Utah Department of Public Safety crash data compiled for the Healthy Salt Lake indicator project.⁸

The city and UDOT are now targeting Redwood Road directly. A $2.9 million federal Safe Streets and Roads for All grant, awarded in September 2024, is paying for signal retiming, expanded sidewalks, and three new pedestrian-activated crosswalk beacons across a 6.4-mile stretch of the road on the city's west side, where the population has grown roughly 20 percent in recent years.⁹ The 2100 South rebuild through Sugar House, between 700 East and 1300 East, is an earlier version of the same idea: new crosswalks and a multi-use path built into the road itself rather than added on afterward.⁷

Vision Zero and what's changing

All of this sits under Salt Lake City's Vision Zero policy. Mayor Erin Mendenhall committed the city to it on January 11, 2023, setting a goal of zero traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2035.¹⁰ The Vision Zero Task Force, made up of city and state agency staff, is the group setting priorities behind projects like the Redwood Road grant and the 2100 South rebuild described above.¹⁰

What the data means after a crash

None of this changes what happens the week after a crash. If you were hurt on I-15, on Bangerter Highway, on Redwood Road, or anywhere else in the valley, the numbers above explain why these particular roads produce so many claims, but they don't settle who pays your medical bills or repairs your car. Utah is a no-fault state for auto insurance, which means your own personal injury protection coverage pays initial medical bills regardless of fault, up to your policy limits, before fault is even sorted out. Whether you can step outside that system and pursue the other driver depends on the severity of the injury and the specifics of your policy. An attorney in our legal directory can walk through what your specific crash and coverage actually allow.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Utah Highway Safety Office, "2024 Crash Fact Sheet" - https://highwaysafety.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2025/10/2024-Crash-Fact-Sheet.pdf

2. Utah Department of Transportation and Utah Department of Public Safety, "UDOT and DPS release preliminary 2024 statewide traffic fatality numbers" - https://connect.udot.utah.gov/2025/01/07/udot-and-dps-release-preliminary-2024-statewide-traffic-fatality-numbers/

3. Utah Department of Transportation and Utah Department of Public Safety, "UDOT and DPS release 2025 statewide traffic fatality numbers" - https://connect.udot.utah.gov/2026/01/06/udot-and-dps-release-2025-statewide-traffic-fatality-numbers/

4. Utah Highway Safety Office, "2026 Statewide Problem Identification" - https://highwaysafety.utah.gov/2026-problem-id/

5. Fox13 (KSTU), "Try the new interactive map to find Utah's most dangerous roads" - https://www.fox13now.com/driventochange/try-the-new-interactive-map-to-find-utahs-most-dangerous-roads

6. Utah Department of Transportation, "Three new Bangerter Highway interchanges now complete" - https://connect.udot.utah.gov/2022/05/19/three-new-bangerter-highway-interchanges-now-complete/

7. KUER, "Salt Lake City and Moab's slower speed limits are proving safer for pedestrians" - https://www.kuer.org/politics-government/2026-01-16/salt-lake-city-and-moabs-slower-speed-limits-are-proving-safer-for-pedestrians

8. Healthy Salt Lake, "Pedestrian-Involved Collision Rate, Salt Lake County" (source data: Utah Department of Public Safety) - https://www.healthysaltlake.org/indicators/index/view?indicatorId=7407&localeId=2846

9. City of Salt Lake, "Salt Lake City awarded $2.9M federal grant to make Redwood Road safer for residents" - https://www.slc.gov/blog/2024/09/06/salt-lake-city-awarded-2-9m-federal-grant-to-make-redwood-road-safer-for-residents/

10. Salt Lake City Transportation, "Vision Zero SLC" - https://www.slc.gov/transportation/safety/salt-lake-city-vision-zero/