Fatal crash rate in Ellis County, Texas

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

Ellis County, Texas2024 · fatal crashes recorded by NHTSA

17.2fatal crashes per 100,000 residents in 2024

In 2024, NHTSA recorded 40 fatal crashes in Ellis County, Texas, where 232,454 people lived. That is 17.2 fatal crashes for every 100,000 residents, and 41 people died in those crashes. Over 2020 to 2024 the average was 16.4.

010203040

Texas 12.1

US 10.7

Ellis County 17.2

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

Per 100,000: 40 fatal crashes ÷ 232,454 residents × 100,000 = 17.2
Five-year: 175 crashes (2020 to 2024) ÷ 1,065,864 resident-years × 100,000 = 16.4
Same year: Texas: 3,774 ÷ 31,318,578 = 12.1 · United States: 36,297 ÷ 340,003,797 = 10.7

Every year, 2020 to 2024

US 10.7

22.1

16.2

13.2

13.9

17.2

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	43	50	194,322	22.1
2021	33	35	203,253	16.2
2022	28	33	212,488	13.2
2023	31	37	223,347	13.9
2024	40	41	232,454	17.2

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 175 fatal crashes NHTSA coded to Ellis County, Texas over five years, from the fields FARS records. Nothing is estimated or inferred.

Road type	Crashes	Share
Interstate	49	28%
Other freeway or expressway	17	10%
Other principal arterial	30	17%
Minor arterial	12	7%
Major collector	49	28%
Minor collector	1	1%
Local road	17	10%
Unknown or not reported	0	0%
Rural	75	43%
Urban	100	57%

Time of day	Crashes	Share
Midnight to 5:59 am	43	25%
6 am to 11:59 am	39	22%
Noon to 5:59 pm	39	22%
6 pm to 11:59 pm	54	31%
Hour unknown	0	0%

Light	Crashes	Share
Daylight	68	39%
Dark, not lighted (or lighting unknown)	90	51%
Dark, lighted	11	6%
Dawn or dusk	5	3%
Unknown or not reported	1	1%

Weather	Crashes	Share
Clear	135	77%
Cloudy	21	12%
Rain	13	7%
Snow, sleet or freezing rain	2	1%
Fog, smog or smoke	4	2%
Severe wind, blowing sand or other	0	0%
Unknown or not reported	0	0%

Involving	Crashes	Share
A pedestrian	19	11%
A bicyclist or other cyclist	3	2%
A speeding-related vehicle	75	43%
A driver police reported as drinking	37	21%

Most-named roads	Crashes
I-45	28
US-287	26
US-77	8
I-35E	7
US-67	7

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.