The Chevrolet Silverado is tied to more road deaths in Texas than any other model, with 351 lives lost in 2024, according to a new analysis of federal crash data by The Martin Law Firm.
The car most likely to be part of a fatal crash on Texas roads is not a sports car or a semi. It’s the Chevrolet Silverado.
Of the 4,160 people killed on Texas roads in 2024, 351 died in crashes involving a Silverado. That is 86 more than the Ford F-150 in second place, and more than two and a half times the toll of the Toyota Camry, the highest-ranked passenger car at 135 deaths.
The Martin Law Firm reached these figures by sorting every fatal crash in the state by vehicle model, using records from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Pickups Dominate the Top of the List
Trucks hold the first three spots and five of the top ten. Taken together, the Silverado, F-150 and Ram 1500 are linked to 795 deaths, close to one in every five lives lost on Texas roads that year.
| Model | Deaths | Vehicles involved | Deaths outside the vehicle | Texas vs US |
| Chevrolet Silverado | 351 | 316 | 57.50% | 1.56x |
| Ford F-150 | 265 | 244 | 57.00% | 1.45x |
| Ram 1500 | 217 | 186 | 61.80% | 1.36x |
| Toyota Camry | 135 | 121 | 52.60% | 1.01x |
| Freightliner Cascadia | 124 | 117 | 83.90% | 1.22x |
| GMC Sierra | 120 | 108 | 65.80% | 1.29x |
| Toyota Corolla | 112 | 100 | 42.00% | 1.17x |
| Honda Accord | 108 | 96 | 39.80% | 0.82x |
| Ford F-250 | 107 | 102 | 68.20% | 1.60x |
| Chevrolet Tahoe | 98 | 89 | 53.10% | 1.69x |
Two drivers can pull up to the same red light, one in a sedan and one in a full-size truck, and pose very different risks to the people around them.
The Cost Falls on Those Outside the Truck
Most people who die in these crashes were not riding in the pickup. Of the 351 deaths tied to the Silverado, 202 were people in other vehicles, on foot or on bikes. Fifty-two were pedestrians.
The same holds across the other trucks on the list. Some 68.2% of deaths linked to the Ford F-250 and 61.8% linked to the Ram 1500 were people outside the vehicle. For the three cars in the top ten, the Camry, Corolla and Accord, that share falls to between 39.8% and 52.6%.
Pedestrians bear much of the weight. Pickups were involved in crashes that killed 206 of the 763 pedestrians who died on Texas roads in 2024, more than one in four. This lines up with research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which found that pickups, SUVs and vans with hoods over 40 inches tall are about 45% more likely to kill a pedestrian than lower cars with sloped fronts.
Texas Stands Apart From the Rest of the Nation
The Silverado makes up 5.25% of vehicles in fatal crashes in Texas, more than one and a half times its 3.36% share nationwide. Across all pickups, the gap is just as clear: they account for 21.4% of vehicles in fatal Texas crashes, against 16.0% across the US.
Nine of the ten models on the list show up in Texas crashes at the same rate or higher than they do nationally. The Chevrolet Tahoe has the widest gap at 1.69 times its national share, followed by the Ford F-250 at 1.60 and the Silverado at 1.56.
Texas has not gone a full day without a road death since November 7, 2000, a streak TxDOT has made the focus of its “End the Streak” campaign. Most drivers think of crash risk as something faced by those inside the car. This data shows the heaviest toll often lands on those around it, a point truck owners, fleet operators and city planners would do well to weigh. With so many of the state’s deadliest crashes tied to its largest vehicles, what Texans drive now matters as much for road safety as how they drive it.
Notes to Editors
Figures come from the NHTSA 2024 Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), covering all fatal crashes in Texas in 2024 (3,774 crashes, 4,160 deaths). TxDOT’s own records show a slightly different total of 4,150 deaths.
“Deaths” counts everyone who died in a crash involving at least one vehicle of that model, with each crash counted once per model. The 795 total for the top three pickups is deduplicated, so a crash involving two of those models is counted once.
“Deaths outside the vehicle” is the share of those deaths among people not riding in that model, including occupants of other vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists. “Texas vs US” compares each model’s share of vehicles in fatal crashes in Texas with its share nationally. The Ram 1500 figure includes older trucks sold under the Dodge Ram name.
Models were identified by VIN. Involvement in a crash does not mean the vehicle or its driver was at fault. Rankings reflect crash involvement, not a rate per registered vehicle, and so partly reflect how common each model is on Texas roads.
Source: The Martin Law Firm