Southern California freeways remain deadly as roadway fatalities soar, according to a report released Monday, July 1, three days before a record number of motorists hit the road for the Independence Day holiday.
Fatalities from car crashes rose a whopping 17% in 2022 in California, as compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2018, reported ConsumerAffairs’ Journal of Consumer Research in its data-driven study “Deadliest Roads in California.”
In a Top 10 list of California freeways with the most fatalities, the Inland Empire holds the first and second spots. A stretch of the 15 Freeway in San Bernardino County led with 48 deaths as “the deadliest road in California,” while the 10 Freeway in Riverside County was second, recording 31 deaths, the report found.
Fatalities on those two freeways jumped from 33 and 25 in 2018, respectively.
The 10 Freeway in Los Angeles County was eighth with 14 fatalities and the 5 Freeway in Orange County was fourth deadliest, with 16 deaths. The 5 Freeway in San Diego County was third, with 21 deaths. The others on the list were in Central and Northern California.
San Bernardino County was the deadliest for driving among the state’s 10 most populous counties, with 20.4 fatalities per 100,000 people in 2022, the report stated.
These counties followed: Fresno (19.5); Riverside (13.9); Sacramento (13.6); Los Angeles (8.8); San Diego (8.7); Orange (7.3); Alameda (6.3); Santa Clara (5.9) and Contra Costa (5.8). All Southern California counties posted increases above 2018 and 2020, except for San Diego.
Total roadway deaths reached 858 in Los Angeles County in 2022, including all fatalities on all roadways including freeways, thoroughfares and small streets, said Dieter Holger, data reporter with ConsumerAffairs on Monday.
Data for the report was gathered from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 2022 numbers, the latest available. The report focused on car crashes on freeways, highlighting the death toll by county.
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