This publication is an official Crash-Stats Brief Statistical Summary issued in July 2026 by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) National Center for Statistics and Analysis. The report's primary purpose is to provide early, near-real-time statistical projections of national, regional, and state-level motor vehicle traffic fatalities and fatality rates per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) for the first quarter of the year. To generate these early projections before final census data is completed, NHTSA employs a time series cross-section regression methodology that models the relationship between monthly data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), NHTSA’s non-public Early Notification (EN) program, and Monthly Fatality Counts (MFC). These traffic safety estimates are further calculated using VMT projections provided by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Overall, this document serves as a preliminary forecasting instrument designed to rapidly catalog and share safety trends with the broader highway safety community, with the understanding that these early estimates will undergo minor statistical revisions over the next two years as final FARS files are processed.

Infrastructure Assets: Highway Assets, Other Highway Assets, Pavement
Resource Types: Case Study/Practice Example, Research Report
Capabilities: Data & Information Systems
Management Processes: Monitoring & Adjustment, Performance Reporting & Communication