New Year’s Holiday May See Increase in Road Deaths

It’s estimated that 429 people may die on U.S. roads this New Year’s Day holiday period, slightly above the six-year average of 423 fatalities experienced over New Year’s Day holidays of the same length.

National Safety Council estimates take into account that holidays are a time of travel across the U.S. Car travel, which has the highest fatality rate of any major form of motorized transportation based on fatalities per passenger mile, also comes with the risks that there are drivers on the road who have consumed alcohol, a major contributing factor to motor-vehicle crashes, according to the NSC.

The council says alcohol-impaired fatalities in 2023 represented 30% of the total traffic fatalities. During the 2023, the latest available data, 34% of New Year’s Day holiday period fatalities involved an alcohol-impaired driver.

The New Year’s Day holiday period varies from 1.25 to 4.25 days, depending on which day of the week the holiday falls. In 2026, New Year’s Day falls on a Thursday, so the holiday period this year is 4.25 days.

The NSC estimate has a 90% confidence interval for traffic deaths this holiday of 339 to 529. NSC underestimated the actual number of New Year’s Day deaths in 2023 by 5.3%, but it fell within the confidence interval.