Mexico Road Accident Trends: 16,772 Deaths and a Motorcycle Boom

Traffic on the Periférico ring road in Guadalajara
File photo: traffic on the southern Periférico ring road in Guadalajara, Jalisco, June 2023. Photo: Edson Armando via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.
Rising since 2020Updated 24 October 2026

Trend summary

  • The Ministry of Health’s road safety secretariat (STCONAPRA) counted 16,772 road deaths in 2023 and 96,903 injured. Deaths rose 4.9%, the third yearly rise in a row after the Covid low of 13,630 in 2020.
  • Motorcyclists are the fastest-growing group: 2,878 died in 2023, 17.2% of the total and 52% more than in 2018. The number of registered motorcycles doubled between 2015 and 2020, to 5.3 million.
  • Mexico missed its Decade of Action goal. The 2011–2020 national strategy aimed to halve deaths; the 2020 target was 10,492, but 13,630 people died. Motorcyclist deaths ran far above the projected path, while car occupant deaths fell faster than expected.
  • The General Law on Mobility and Road Safety took effect in May 2022, setting national rules that states must follow. Large crashes still make headlines, such as the Chiapas migrant lorry rollover (55 dead, 2021) and the Escárcega bus crash (41 dead, 2025).
16,772road deaths, Mexico, 2023
2,878motorcyclists killed, 2023
380,391urban crashes recorded by INEGI, 2025
81%of transport-accident deaths were men, 2024

What the numbers show

Mexico has two main counts. STCONAPRA, part of the Ministry of Health, publishes the national road traffic death figure in its annual Informe sobre la situación de la seguridad vial. Its series: 16,615 deaths in 2011, a peak of 17,102 in 2012, then 15,856 in 2013, 15,886 in 2014 and 16,039 in 2015, a rate of 13.3 per 100,000 people (STCONAPRA 2016 report); 15,866 in 2017 (12.8 per 100,000) (STCONAPRA 2018 report); 15,574 in 2018 (12.4) (STCONAPRA 2019 report); 14,673 in 2019 and 13,630 in 2020, about 11 per 100,000 (STCONAPRA 2021 report). Deaths then climbed for three years running, reaching 16,772 in 2023, up 4.9%, with 96,903 injured (STCONAPRA figures cited by ITDP Mexico). INEGI’s death registrations, which cover all transport accidents, give a similar picture: transport accidents made up 42.8% of the 39,919 accidental deaths in 2024, or roughly 17,100, and 81.3% of the dead were men (INEGI). Preliminary 2025 data put the share at 42.6% of 38,166 accidental deaths, roughly 16,300 (INEGI).

Vulnerable road users carry most of the toll. In 2015, after STCONAPRA reassigned deaths with no recorded road-user type, pedestrians were 48.5% of deaths (7,780), car occupants 33.2%, motorcyclists 16.3% (2,622) and cyclists 1.8% (STCONAPRA). Raw death certificates often leave this blank: in 2020 the type was unknown for 51.3% of deaths (STCONAPRA). Motorcyclist deaths rose from 1,890 in 2018 to 2,878 in 2023, a rate of about 2.2 per 100,000, according to a Ministry of Health document cited in the Chamber of Deputies gazette. INEGI’s urban crash survey (ATUS), which records only deaths at the scene on non-federal roads, logged 380,391 crashes in 2025, up 1.45%. Crashes involving motorcycles rose 10.7% to 68,505 and rollovers 15% to 15,412, while pedestrian knock-downs fell 4% to 10,612 (Milenio). Nearly 35,000 crashes, 9.2%, were hit-and-runs (La Razón).

What is driving it

Official figures understate the problem. A study of 1999–2009 death records found that once vaguely coded deaths were reassigned, road deaths rose by 18% to 45% (Híjar et al., Traffic Injury Prevention, 2012). Deaths grew quickly from 1998 to 2008 and have fallen since 2009, mostly among young male car occupants; rates stayed high for pedestrians and other vulnerable users over 50 (Cervantes et al., International Journal of Public Health, 2016). A mid-decade review estimated 10,856 deaths prevented in 2011–2015, but pedestrian and motorcyclist deaths were higher than expected (Híjar, Pérez-Núñez and Salinas-Rodríguez, Revista de Saúde Pública, 2018). Global Burden of Disease estimates show age-standardised road injury death rates falling since 1990 but stalling since 2011 (Dávila-Cervantes, Accident Analysis and Prevention, 2021).

Motorcycles are the big change. Registered motorcycles rose from 2.6 million in 2015 to 5.3 million in 2020, while the whole fleet grew 28% to 51.2 million vehicles (STCONAPRA). The law has also changed. A December 2020 constitutional reform let Congress pass a national mobility law, and the General Law on Mobility and Road Safety was published on 17 May 2022. States had 180 days to bring their laws into line; that deadline passed in November 2022 and harmonisation bills were still being filed in 2025 (Chamber of Deputies).

Recent cases

  • 7 August 2026: INEGI’s preliminary 2025 death statistics counted 38,166 accidental deaths; 42.6% were transport accidents, and 81.4% of transport-accident victims were men (INEGI).
  • 29 July 2026: INEGI’s urban crash data for 2025 showed 380,391 crashes, up 1.45% on 2024. Motorcycle crashes rose 10.7% to 68,505 and rollovers 15% to 15,412 (Milenio).
  • 8 September 2025: A freight train hit a double-decker passenger bus at a level crossing on the Atlacomulco–Maravatío highway in the State of Mexico, killing 10 people and injuring 56, according to state civil protection (El Financiero).

Press releases and official reports, 2023–2026

Five key releases a year for the last four years, newest first. Most come from national bodies such as INEGI, the Ministry of Health, CENAPRED, the National Seismological Service, CONAFOR, the Navy, CONDUSEF and the Official Gazette, from Congress, from international agencies such as PAHO and WHO, and from research journals. Key events, especially in earlier years where official archives are missing, come from Mexican news outlets such as La Jornada, El Universal, Excélsior, El Financiero, Animal Político and Mexico News Daily. Headlines are our English translations of the Spanish originals. Releases from 2007–2022 are in the expandable list after 2023.

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View 20 years of major Mexican road safety press releases (2007–2026)46 more from 2007–2022, up to five a year, newest first

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Many years list fewer than five items, and some have none yet. Several official archives (parts of gob.mx, the Official Gazette and older agency pages) could not be opened when we compiled this list, and we only list items we could open and check. We are still adding to these lists. Where a page shows no date, the date comes from the publisher’s own index; annual reports with no printed date are listed under the year they were released.

Photo list

The northern Periférico ring road in Guadalajara
File photo: the northern section of Guadalajara’s Periférico ring road, seen from the Glorieta del Batán, July 2023. Photo: Edson Armando via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.
A Mi Macro Aeropuerto rapid-transit bus at a station near Guadalajara
File photo: an articulated bus on the Mi Macro Aeropuerto rapid-transit line at a station on the Chapala highway in El Salto, Jalisco, June 2026. Photo: SistemaRayoXP via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

Related on ROR Labs

How this page is built. Figures come from the official statistical releases and research linked above; where agencies publish provisional numbers we say so, because they are revised. National death data come from INEGI’s death registrations, which are finalised the year after; preliminary figures are labelled. Some figures come from news reports quoting officials, and we name the outlet. Money is given in Mexican pesos (MX$). Headlines and quotes are our translations from Spanish. Photos are public-domain or Creative Commons images credited in each caption; file photos are illustrative and are not from the events described unless the caption says so. This page tracks trends and is not personal safety, medical, legal or financial advice.