Car Injury Statistics

Also see: Car Crash Report and Car Death Report

Since 1996, American car owners have reported 43,595 car injuries to the U.S. Department of Transportation for vehicles built by the 31 automakers that we track. The car injuries that we study in this article are results of car problems. Table 1 shows the most common car problems that caused the injuries since year 1996. Table 2 shows the number of car injuries reported each year due to these car problems. Table 3 shows the number of car injuries by production year.

Common causes of car injuries

Table 1 shows the most common car problems that caused car injuries. The number one cause of car injuries is failure of the air bags. The next two leading causes of car injuries are vehicle speed control and hydraulic service brakes, respectively.

Table 1. Common causes of car injuries

Car Problem Category	Number of Car Injuries
Air Bags	17,748
Vehicle Speed Control	3,071
Hydraulic Service Brakes	2,881
Structure	2,824
Seat Belts	2,187
Steering	1,926
Power Train	1,911
Seats	1,720
Electrical System	1,529
Engine And Engine Cooling	1,489
Equipment	1,291
Suspension	924
Tires	891
Visibility	572
Latches/locks/linkages	505
Wheels	421
Unknown Or Other	331
Gasoline Fuel System	322
Other Fuel System	298
Electronic Stability Control	256
Exterior Lighting	226
Parking Brake	100
Air Service Brakes	79
Child Seat	45
Traction Control System	25
Interior Lighting	12
Diesel Fuel System	8
Forward Collision Avoidance	1
Back Over Prevention	1
Hybrid Propulsion System	1

Total number of car injuries by year

Table 2 shows the number of injuries reported each year since 1996. 2014 had the most injuries reported (3,397 injuries) and 1996 had the least injuries with 406 injuries reported.

Table 2. Total Number of injuries reported each year since 1996

Calendar Year	Number of car Injuries
1996	406
1997	575
1998	801
1999	1,325
2000	1,857
2001	1,969
2002	1,852
2003	1,853
2004	2,431
2005	2,059
2006	1,823
2007	1,727
2008	1,867
2009	1,796
2010	2,308
2011	1,582
2012	1,943
2013	2,307
2014	3,397
2015	3,166
2016	2,801
2017	2,199
2018	316

Total number of car injuries by model year

Table 3 shows the number of injuries reported for vehicles manufactured from year 1996 to 2018. Cars made in 2002 had the most injuries with 3,127 injuries reported and cars produced in 2017 (current year is excluded) had the least injuries with 237 injuries reported.

Table 3. Total Number of injuries reported for vehicles built since 1996

Production Year	Number of Injuries
1996 vehicles	2,206
1997 vehicles	2,180
1998 vehicles	2,265
1999 vehicles	2,701
2000 vehicles	3,034
2001 vehicles	2,978
2002 vehicles	3,127
2003 vehicles	2,842
2004 vehicles	2,888
2005 vehicles	2,736
2006 vehicles	2,494
2007 vehicles	2,600
2008 vehicles	2,046
2009 vehicles	1,335
2010 vehicles	1,395
2011 vehicles	1,338
2012 vehicles	1,321
2013 vehicles	1,279
2014 vehicles	1,123
2015 vehicles	852
2016 vehicles	479
2017 vehicles	237
2018 vehicles	20

Also see: Car Crash Report and Car Death Report