Fatal Bicycle Hit-and-Runs Rising as Overall Traffic Deaths Fall

American roads are splitting into two stories. Overall US traffic deaths fell to an estimated 36,640 in 2025, the fourth consecutive annual decline. Hit-and-run fatalities moved the opposite way, reaching a record share, and cyclists are absorbing the worst of it.

A record share of the toll

In March 2026, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety reported that 15% of all police-reported crashes in 2023 involved a driver who fled the scene. Those crashes killed 2,872 people, representing 7% of all crash deaths and the highest proportion ever recorded, and more than 70% of the dead were cyclists or pedestrians.

What our own data shows

We ran the question against federal crash files. Bicyclist deaths involving a fleeing driver rose from 141 in 2019 to 275 in 2023, while the hit-and-run share of all bicyclist deaths climbed from 16.5% to 23.6%. Darkness concentrates the danger considerably: in dark conditions, 31.6% of cyclist deaths involved a fleeing driver, against 10.9% in daylight.

State rankings and timing sit in our hit-and-run research report.

What it means for an injured rider

"In a normal crash, the first question is who was at fault. In a hit-and-run, it is whether anyone will ever be found to pay. At Bicycle Accident Lawyers Group, we open the uninsured motorist file in the first week, because the riders who wait are the ones who recover nothing." (Robert Goldwater, UC Berkeley Law, founder of Bicycle Accident Lawyers Group)

When no driver is identified, your uninsured motorist coverage usually becomes the route to compensation. However, those notice deadlines run short, and some policies require immediate police documentation.