Los Angeles traffic statistics show a large and complex transportation system facing serious safety challenges. The city recorded 336 traffic fatalities in 2023, while its updated High Injury Network covers 549 miles of roadway. At the same time, Los Angeles is expanding bus priority, bike facilities, school safety treatments, and traffic-management technology.
Contents
- Traffic deaths and the highest-injury roads
- Speeding and collision patterns
- School and pedestrian safety
- Transit lanes and public transportation
- Traffic signals and street technology
- Bikes, electric vehicles, and street access
- County and unincorporated-area patterns
Traffic deaths and the highest-injury roads
The Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) Annual Report Year 2023 recorded 336 fatalities in the city during 2023. A separate LADOT Weekly Update dated September 15, 2022 described the city’s High Injury Network as about 6% of city streets, spanning more than 450 miles. That network accounted for almost 70% of deaths and severe injuries involving people walking.
The network has since been updated. The Los Angeles Vision Zero Safety Study 2024 lists 549 miles of roadway in the updated High Injury Network, representing 7.5% of the citywide roadway network. These figures describe different versions of the network and should not be treated as a direct year-to-year change in road danger: the earlier figure comes from a 2022 update, while the later figure comes from the 2024 study.
The same 2024 study counted 1,472 killed-and-severely-injured (KSI) collisions in 2017 and 1,658 in 2021, an increase of about 13%. The people involved in those 2021 KSI collisions were distributed across several road-user groups:
| Road-user group | Share of KSI collisions |
|---|---|
| Pedestrians | 38% |
| Motorcyclists | 20% |
| Bicyclists | 9% |
| Vehicle-only collisions | 33% |
These shares come from the Los Angeles Vision Zero Safety Study 2024 and describe involvement in KSI collisions, rather than a count of all traffic crashes.
Speeding and collision patterns
Speed is a recurring factor in Los Angeles traffic safety data. LADOT’s Vision Zero Safety Study found unsafe speed was the primary collision factor in 40% of vehicle-only fatal collisions. The study also found unsafe speed contributed to 35% of all fatal collisions citywide. A LADOT Weekly Update dated February 12, 2026 reported that around one in five fatal crashes in Los Angeles in 2024 were directly attributed to speeding.
The three speed-related figures use different definitions and time references. The 40% figure applies to vehicle-only fatal collisions, the 35% figure applies to all fatal collisions in the safety study, and the roughly one-in-five estimate applies to fatal crashes in 2024. They therefore indicate a substantial role for speed without supporting a single combined rate.
LADOT reported 177 miles of speed limit reductions completed in 2022. LADOT’s fiscal year 2022-23 review reported citywide speed limit reductions covering 200 miles of city streets. In the 2023 annual report, LADOT also described 15 mph school slow zones at more than 200 schools and speed humps constructed at over 50 schools. The city initially funded reduced speed limits for 45 schools, and the City Council later authorized School Safety Zones at an additional 200 schools in fiscal year 2023-24.
The 2023 annual report also states that Assembly Bill 645 enables Los Angeles to install 125 speed safety cameras at selected locations. The figure is an authorized potential installation count, not a report that all 125 cameras were operating.
School and pedestrian safety
LADOT’s school safety work was planned to bring improvements to nearly 250 schools by the end of the 2023-24 school year. The program included the more than 200 15 mph school slow zones and over 50 schools with new speed humps described in the LADOT Annual Report Year 2023.
The 2022 LADOT Annual Report listed 15 scramble pedestrian crossings, more than 1,340 signals with leading pedestrian intervals, more than 130 midblock pedestrian signals, and 16 pedestrian hybrid beacons. It also listed more than 150 pedestrian warning devices. These facilities represent different tools: some give people walking a timing advantage, while others provide crossings or warnings at locations where a standard signal may not be sufficient.
The 2022 report listed more than 85 signals with sabbatical recall. It also reported that 400 signals flashed yellow at night and 65 signals rested in red at night, both described as measures intended to slow driving speeds. These are system counts from the 2022 report, not current operating totals.
The county-level data shows why pedestrian safety needs to be considered beyond the city boundary. In unincorporated Los Angeles County communities, pedestrians accounted for almost 30% of fatalities over 2015-2024, while drivers accounted for 53.5%. Pedestrians age 60 and older made up 38.7% of pedestrian fatalities in that period, followed by people ages 40-59 at 33.2% and adults ages 20-39 at almost 25%.
Transit lanes and public transportation
LADOT and Metro installed over 13 miles of new bus priority lanes in 2023. The projects show how traffic statistics can describe access and movement, not only collisions.
| Project or service | Reported measurement |
|---|---|
| Venice Boulevard bus priority lanes | 4 miles, operating 24 hours |
| Metro Line 33 riders served on Venice | Almost 20,000 average-weekday riders |
| People within a 5-minute walk of Venice project area | 47,000 |
| Schools in the Venice corridor | 36 |
| La Brea Avenue priority bus lanes | 2.8 miles |
| Metro Line 212 riders on La Brea | Approximately 12,000 daily riders |
| Sepulveda bus-lane segment | 5.5 miles |
| Metro Line 234 riders on Sepulveda | 9,000 weekday riders |
The Venice Boulevard figures are from the LADOT Annual Report Year 2023. The project provides four miles of 24-hour bus priority lanes, serves almost 20,000 Metro Line 33 riders on an average weekday, places 47,000 people within a five-minute walk, and includes 36 schools in the corridor.
The La Brea Avenue priority bus lanes run 2.8 miles between Sunset Boulevard and Olympic Boulevard. The annual report says they serve approximately 12,000 daily Metro Line 212 riders. Among those riders, 75% do not own a car, 90% are people of color, 40% are below the poverty line, and 95% use Metro at least several times per week. The lanes improve bus speeds by 15% or more.
The Sepulveda Boulevard bus lanes run along a 5.5-mile segment from Ventura Boulevard to Rayen Street. The Sepulveda/West Valley project also includes a 0.9-mile westbound Ventura Boulevard segment. The project primarily serves 9,000 weekday Metro Line 234 riders.
LADOT’s 2022 annual report recorded 9,479,109 DASH rides, 716,687 Commuter Express rides, 40,611 Cityride-DAR rides, 83,291 taxi cab rides, and 37,820 LAnow rides. The report listed total LADOT system ridership of 10,357,518 in 2022. It also reported 30 all-electric DASH buses and the first all-electric Commuter Express vehicle entering service that year.
Traffic signals and street technology
The LADOT Annual Report 2022 described a large traffic-management system. Its ATSAC system managed 4,850 traffic signals, while ATSAC provided transit priority at 1,500 signals. LADOT covered 7,500 miles of streets, listed more than 26,000 traffic sensors, and reported over 620 closed-circuit television traffic cameras. It also operated more than 350 Caltrans signals.
The report’s signal inventory included 15 scramble crossings, more than 1,340 leading-pedestrian-interval signals, more than 85 signals with sabbatical recall, more than 130 midblock pedestrian signals, 16 pedestrian hybrid beacons, and more than 150 pedestrian warning devices. Because these counts come from a 2022 report, they describe that reporting period rather than a guaranteed current inventory.
LADOT’s fiscal year 2022-23 review reported more than $250 million in state and federal grants, including a $35 million Transformative Climate Communities grant. The same review reported that LADOT eliminated a backlog of over 9,000 service requests, hired or promoted 350 full-time employees, and added or upgraded 22 miles of bike lanes.
The 2023 annual report also records a transportation response beyond ordinary signal operations. LADOT helped manage the I-10 freeway closure, after which the freeway reopened in nine days. Its traffic enforcement alternatives task force had 13 members and met approximately once a month from June 2022 through September 2023.
Bikes, electric vehicles, and street access
Los Angeles had 1,248 lane miles of bike facilities according to the LADOT Annual Report Year 2023. LADOT’s fiscal year 2022-23 review separately reported 22 miles of bike lanes added or upgraded during that fiscal year. The two figures are different kinds of measurements: one is a citywide facility total, while the other is work completed in a specific fiscal period.
The BlueLA fleet received 50 additional electric cars in 2023. LADOT also reported its first all-electric Commuter Express vehicle entering service in 2022 and 30 all-electric DASH buses operating that year. These figures identify additions or operating totals reported by LADOT; they do not establish the size of every electric vehicle fleet in Los Angeles.
LADOT reported that more than 3,000 businesses participated in LA Al Fresco before the program became permanent. Nearly 80% of survey respondents said they would not have been able to stay in business without the program. The same 2023 report said LADOT helped support housing for 1,951 unhoused Angelenos through Inside Safe operations in the prior year and removed 503,460 pounds of waste from the public right-of-way through that support.
County and unincorporated-area patterns
The LA County PLACE Data shows that unincorporated communities averaged 88 traffic-collision deaths per year over 2015-2024. The LA County PLACE Vision Zero data lists 885 traffic-related fatalities on unincorporated roads during 2015-2024. These figures use the same broad decade but different presentations; the annual average is not a substitute for the reported total.
The LA County Vision Zero Action Plan counted 8,103 people who died in traffic collisions across Los Angeles County between 2012 and 2022, including 1,416 deaths in unincorporated areas. The geographic scope is countywide for the first number and unincorporated areas for the second.
Within unincorporated Los Angeles, nearly 30 bicyclists were killed over 2015-2024. Hit-and-run crashes made up 30% of pedestrian fatalities in that period. Hit-and-run crashes were nearly half of pedestrian fatalities in 2016 and represented 40% in 2018, 2022, and 2023. Senior pedestrian fatalities increased by 45% between 2022 and 2023.
Passenger fatalities doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic period compared with pre- and post-pandemic levels, according to LA County PLACE Data. That comparison describes a relative change across periods rather than a reported number of passenger deaths. Together with the age and hit-and-run figures, it points to substantial differences within the overall county traffic-safety picture.