Fatal crash rate in Taos County, New Mexico

Fatal crashes recorded by NHTSA in Taos County, New Mexico, 2020 to 2024, divided by the people who live there. Fatal crashes only: not injuries, not all crashes, not traffic in general.

Taos County, New Mexico2024 · fatal crashes recorded by NHTSA

20.3fatal crashes per 100,000 residents in 2024

In 2024, NHTSA recorded 7 fatal crashes in Taos County, New Mexico, where 34,441 people lived. That is 20.3 fatal crashes for every 100,000 residents, and 7 people died in those crashes. Over 2020 to 2024 the average was 26.1.

010203040

New Mexico 17.8

US 10.7

Taos County 20.3

The road is a scale of fatal crashes per 100,000 residents in 2024, 0 to 40. The yellow post is Taos County; the white posts are New Mexico and the United States.

Per 100,000: 7 fatal crashes ÷ 34,441 residents × 100,000 = 20.3
Five-year: 45 crashes (2020 to 2024) ÷ 172,619 resident-years × 100,000 = 26.1
Same year: New Mexico: 378 ÷ 2,126,774 = 17.8 · United States: 36,297 ÷ 340,003,797 = 10.7

Every year, 2020 to 2024

US 10.7

43.5

34.6

20.2

11.6

20.3

20202021202220232024

Bars: this place, fatal crashes per 100,000 residents. Dashed line: the United States in the latest year. Source: NHTSA FARS and Census population estimates, each year.

Year	Fatal crashes	Deaths	Population	Per 100,000
2020	15	15	34,459	43.5
2021	12	13	34,694	34.6
2022	7	8	34,590	20.2
2023	4	4	34,435	11.6
2024	7	7	34,441	20.3

2024 is NHTSA’s Annual Report File and will be revised when the final file replaces it. Populations are July 1 estimates, Census Vintage 2025.

What the record says about those crashes, 2020 to 2024

Every figure is a count of the 45 fatal crashes NHTSA coded to Taos County, New Mexico over five years, from the fields FARS records. Nothing is estimated or inferred.

Road type	Crashes	Share
Interstate	0	0%
Other freeway or expressway	0	0%
Other principal arterial	8	18%
Minor arterial	12	27%
Major collector	11	24%
Minor collector	7	16%
Local road	6	13%
Unknown or not reported	1	2%
Rural	37	82%
Urban	7	16%

Time of day	Crashes	Share
Midnight to 5:59 am	6	13%
6 am to 11:59 am	6	13%
Noon to 5:59 pm	18	40%
6 pm to 11:59 pm	15	33%
Hour unknown	0	0%

Light	Crashes	Share
Daylight	28	62%
Dark, not lighted (or lighting unknown)	16	36%
Dark, lighted	0	0%
Dawn or dusk	1	2%
Unknown or not reported	0	0%

Weather	Crashes	Share
Clear	42	93%
Cloudy	2	4%
Rain	0	0%
Snow, sleet or freezing rain	1	2%
Fog, smog or smoke	0	0%
Severe wind, blowing sand or other	0	0%
Unknown or not reported	0	0%

Involving	Crashes	Share
A pedestrian	4	9%
A bicyclist or other cyclist	1	2%
A speeding-related vehicle	32	71%
A driver police reported as drinking	9	20%

Most-named roads	Crashes
SR-522	8
SR-68	6
US-64	5
SR-518	3
SR-150	2

Road type is FARS FUNC_SYS; speeding is any vehicle coded SPEEDREL 2 to 5; drinking is any driver coded DRINKING = 1 (police-reported, not a blood-alcohol test). Road names are the trafficway strings as the police coded them, counted as written, so the same road can appear under two spellings.

How this is counted

Fatal crashes are rows in NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) file FARS2024NationalCSV.zip, accident.csv, one row per crash on a public road in which someone died within 30 days. Deaths are the FATALS field. Counties are the FARS STATE and COUNTY codes joined to Census FIPS codes.
Population is the Census Bureau’s July 1 estimate for the same year, county totals, Vintage 2025. Rate per 100,000 = crashes ÷ population × 100,000.
The five-year average is total crashes over the years with both inputs ÷ total population over those years × 100,000, the rolling form in 23 CFR 490.207.
What it cannot say. FARS has no injury-only or property-damage crashes, no congestion, and nothing about any one driver, trip or road’s risk. A crash is counted where it happened, not where the people lived. Rates are not ranked here; comparing two places means comparing both sets of inputs.

Informational only, not professional advice. Last reviewed: October 2026. Data snapshot built 2026-10-28.