What a Georgia Car Accident Really Costs

The human cost of a death is impossible to calculate. The economic cost is not: the CDC keeps track and reports the numbers annually. According to the CDC, one traffic death in Georgia carries an average of $10.7 million in economic impact. The state's annual bill runs to $16.1 billion, and almost none of it is hospital bills.

By Matt Wetherington

Average economic cost of a single car accident death

$10,729,010

Average cost of a single hospitalized crash injury: $266,402

Calculate the government-approved value of your life

Sources: CDC WISQARS Cost of Injury (fatal: Georgia 2024; nonfatal: US national 2023, the latest published; costs in year-of-report dollars); NHTSA FARS; Georgia statutory mortality tables, O.C.G.A. 24-14-44/45.

The Numbers at a Glance

Motor-vehicle crashes killed 1,502 people in Georgia in 2024.
Each death caused an estimated $10.7 million in economic losses.
Together, those deaths cost $16.1 billion, about $44 million every day.
Georgia's traffic-death rate is 10% above the national average.
Annual losses have fallen 23% since peaking at $20.9 billion in 2021.

Grand total to Georgia

1,502 Deaths = $16.1 Billion Per Year.

The CDC recorded 1,502 motor-vehicle traffic deaths among Georgia residents in 2024. It estimates that those deaths produced $16,114,972,457 in medical costs and lost lifetime work.

The total varies by age because the CDC projects how many working years were lost. That is why the estimated economic loss associated with a child's death can exceed the estimate for an older adult. It is a calculation of expected lifetime work, not a judgment that one life matters more than another.

Child (0-14) $18,323,602 41 $751,267,671

Young adult (15-24) $12,685,428 249 $3,158,671,510

Adult (25-44) $11,609,790 486 $5,642,357,832

Adult (45-64) $11,613,343 444 $5,156,324,309

Senior (65+) $4,987,061 282 $1,406,351,135

Total due, all ages 1,502 $16,114,972,457

The losses run $44.2 million a day, about $511 every second. We are tracking that number live on this page: the running balance sits beside the article on desktop and along the bottom of your screen on mobile.

Sources: CDC WISQARS Cost of Injury, Georgia 2024 (age-band splits and annual total). Unit prices are CDC-reported band averages; amounts are CDC-reported band totals and sum exactly to the all-ages total. Per-day and per-second rates derived from the annual total.

Work and Medical Bills

What Does a $10.7 Million "Cost per Death" Mean?

The CDC's figure is not a settlement, a jury verdict, or a government-approved value for a human life. It is an estimate of two measurable economic consequences.

Type of loss	Amount	Share of total
Lifetime work lost	$10,715,872	99.88%
Medical costs associated with the death	$13,137	0.12%
Total economic loss	$10,729,010	100%

The medical line may appear surprisingly small. Fatal crashes often leave little opportunity for prolonged medical treatment. The much larger loss is the lifetime of work and productivity that will never occur.

What is inside the work-loss line? The CDC prices the work itself: the wages the person would have earned, the fringe benefits that came with them, and a wage equivalent for the unpaid household work, caregiving, and housekeeping they would have done. The figure is expressed as the present value of a full working lifetime. Lost tax revenue is not a separate line; the state's share of those never-earned wages simply disappears with them.

Source: CDC WISQARS Cost of Injury, Georgia, 2024; unintentional motor-vehicle traffic deaths. Work-loss components per the CDC's cost model (Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation).

State Comparison

Georgia Bears Nearly Twice the Average State's Burden

Georgia's 2024 traffic-death losses totaled $16.1 billion. The average across all 50 states was approximately $8.6 billion.

Georgia has more people than the average state, so raw totals do not tell the entire story. But population does not explain the entire difference either. Even after adjusting for population, Georgia's traffic-death rate remains well above the national average.

Line item	Georgia	United States
Traffic death rate (per 100,000)	13.4	12.1
Cost per death	$10,729,010	$10,456,945
Annual motor-vehicle death bill	$16.1B	$8.6B avg. state

Georgia contains approximately 3.3% of the U.S. population but accounts for 3.6% of its motor-vehicle traffic deaths. In other words, the state's death toll is higher than its population alone would predict.

Want to know where and when Georgia's roads kill? Our road-safety investigation maps every crash: which county, which road, which hour.

Georgia

14.6 / 100k

North Carolina

14.4 / 100k

Michigan

10.9 / 100k

Virginia

10.6 / 100k

New Jersey

6.5 / 100k

Traffic-death rate per 100,000 -- NHTSA FARS 2023 (police crash reports).

Death counts (2024): CDC WISQARS, 1,502 (death certificates; rate 13.4; source for all fatal cost figures); NHTSA FARS, 1,403 (police crash reports, annual file). Peer-state bars use the FARS 2023 final file, the latest with final state rates.

Lost quality of life has a price too.

Serious Injuries Carry a Different Kind of Cost

Deaths are only part of the burden. People who survive serious crashes may face hospital bills, time away from work, permanent limitations and a diminished quality of life.

For nonfatal injuries, the CDC estimates three separate losses:

Medical care
Work lost because of the injury
The monetary value assigned to reduced quality of life

Together, those figures produce an estimated total cost. Use the explorer below to compare costs by crash type, severity and age.

Average cost per case, highest-traffic crash injury types (fatal figures Georgia; nonfatal figures US national)
Mechanism	Severity	Medical	Work loss	Lost quality of life	Combined
Motor vehicle occupant	Fatal (GA)	$13,137	$10,715,872	n/a	$10,729,010
Motor vehicle occupant	Hospitalized (US)	$77,386	$25,461	$163,555	$266,402
Motor vehicle occupant	ED-treated (US)	$5,559	$2,871	$89,743	$98,172
Pedestrian	Fatal (GA)	$11,701	$10,237,500	n/a	$10,249,201
Pedestrian	Hospitalized (US)	$102,241	$23,242	$186,299	$311,783
Pedestrian	ED-treated (US)	$9,357	$2,310	$71,794	$83,461
Motorcyclist	Hospitalized (US)	$91,348	$25,461	$171,602	$288,412
Motorcyclist	ED-treated (US)	$9,954	$3,732	$66,131	$79,817
Bicyclist	Hospitalized (US)	$61,347	$17,797	$182,769	$261,913
Bicyclist	ED-treated (US)	$7,296	$1,356	$79,293	$87,946
Fall	Fatal (GA)	$34,746	$4,509,204	n/a	$4,543,950
Fall	Hospitalized (US)	$53,889	$7,906	$206,242	$268,037

Fatal figures are Georgia 2024; nonfatal figures are US national 2023 averages, the latest the CDC has published (CDC publishes no state-level nonfatal costs). Source: CDC WISQARS Cost of Injury.

Six-year activity

Georgia's Traffic-Death Losses Peaked in 2021

Georgia's estimated annual losses from motor-vehicle deaths reached $20.9 billion in 2021, during the pandemic-era rise in traffic fatalities.

By 2024, the total had fallen 23%, returning close to its 2019 level. Across the six years from 2019 through 2024, the CDC estimates that Georgia's motor-vehicle deaths caused approximately $111 billion in combined medical costs and lost work.

Early federal data suggest another decline in 2025.

Year-by-year values

Georgia motor-vehicle fatal-crash cost by year
Year	Total cost	MV deaths
2019	$15.9B	1,492
2020	$18.7B	1,736
2021	$20.9B	1,922
2022	$20.1B	1,853
2023	$19.3B	1,785
2024	$16.1B	1,502
2025 (projected)	$15.0B	1,399

Costs are in year-of-report dollars and are not inflation-adjusted across years. Source: CDC WISQARS Cost of Injury, Georgia 2019-2024; 2025 projected from NHTSA counts (2025 early estimate vs the 2024 Annual Report File, April 2026). No 2026 figures have been published.

Your age matters.

Calculate the "Government-Approved" Value of Your Life.

The CDC's statewide cost model and the calculation of damages in a courtroom are different systems. But both begin with a similar question: how many years of life were lost?

Georgia law makes three historical mortality tables admissible as evidence of life expectancy, codified at O.C.G.A. 24-14-44/45: American Experience (1868), CSO 1958, and Annuity 1949. Each table produces a different estimate of how long a person of a particular age was expected to live.

Enter an age to compare the tables. Add annual earnings to illustrate how those differences can affect a basic projection of lifetime income.

Actuary's Worksheet

Age Age (slider) Sex (affects Annuity 1949 only) Male Female Annual earnings

Enter an age above to compare tables interactively. Benchmark remaining-life-expectancy values (years) at selected ages:

Remaining life expectancy (years) by statutory table, benchmark ages
Age	American Experience	CSO 1958	Annuity 1949 (M)	Annuity 1949 (F)
0	--	68.30	73.18	78.69
5	--	64.19	68.75	74.17
10	48.72	59.58	63.92	69.26
15	45.50	54.95	59.07	64.33
20	42.20	50.37	54.23	59.43
25	38.81	45.82	49.41	54.55
30	35.33	41.25	44.61	49.70
35	31.78	36.69	39.85	44.88
40	28.18	32.18	35.15	40.11
45	24.54	27.81	30.57	35.41
50	20.91	23.63	26.23	30.81
55	17.40	19.71	22.20	26.33
60	14.10	16.12	18.48	22.02
65	11.10	12.90	15.01	17.94
70	8.48	10.12	11.86	14.18
75	6.27	7.81	9.09	10.82
80	4.39	5.85	6.74	7.93
85	2.77	4.32	4.84	5.58
90	1.42	3.06	3.36	3.77

Under O.C.G.A. 24-14-45(c) these tables are admissible as evidence of life expectancy but are not conclusive.

Full mortality tables, all ages 0-109 (O.C.G.A. 24-14-44/45)

Remaining life expectancy (years), all ages 0-109
Age	American Experience	CSO 1958	Annuity 1949 (M)	Annuity 1949 (F)
0	--	68.30	73.18	78.69
1	--	67.78	72.47	77.94
2	--	66.90	71.59	77.04
3	--	66.00	70.65	76.10
4	--	65.10	69.70	75.14
5	--	64.19	68.75	74.17
6	--	63.27	67.78	73.19
7	--	62.35	66.82	72.21
8	--	61.43	65.85	71.23
9	--	60.51	64.89	70.24
10	48.72	59.58	63.92	69.26
11	48.08	58.65	62.95	68.27
12	47.45	57.72	61.98	67.29
13	46.80	56.80	61.01	66.30
14	46.16	55.87	60.04	65.32
15	45.50	54.95	59.07	64.33
16	44.85	54.03	58.10	63.35
17	44.19	53.11	57.13	62.37
18	43.53	52.19	56.17	61.39
19	42.87	51.28	55.20	60.41
20	42.20	50.37	54.23	59.43
21	41.53	49.46	53.26	58.45
22	40.85	48.55	52.30	57.48
23	40.17	47.64	51.33	56.50
24	39.49	46.73	50.37	55.53
25	38.81	45.82	49.41	54.55
26	38.12	44.90	48.44	53.58
27	37.43	43.99	47.48	52.61
28	36.73	43.08	46.52	51.64
29	36.03	42.16	45.56	50.67
30	35.33	41.25	44.61	49.70
31	34.63	40.34	43.65	48.73
32	33.92	39.43	42.70	47.77
33	33.21	38.51	41.74	46.80
34	32.50	37.60	40.79	45.84
35	31.78	36.69	39.85	44.88
36	31.07	35.78	38.90	43.92
37	30.35	34.88	37.96	42.97
38	29.62	33.97	37.02	42.01
39	28.90	33.07	36.08	41.06
40	28.18	32.18	35.15	40.11
41	27.45	31.39	34.22	39.17
42	26.72	30.41	33.29	38.22
43	26.00	29.54	32.38	37.28
44	25.27	28.67	31.47	36.35
45	24.54	27.81	30.57	35.41
46	23.81	26.95	29.67	34.48
47	23.08	26.11	28.80	33.56
48	22.36	25.27	27.93	32.64
49	21.63	24.45	27.07	31.72
50	20.91	23.63	26.23	30.81
51	20.20	22.82	25.40	29.91
52	19.49	22.03	24.58	29.01
53	18.79	21.25	23.78	28.11
54	18.09	20.47	22.98	27.22
55	17.40	19.71	22.20	26.33
56	16.72	18.97	21.44	25.46
57	16.05	18.23	20.68	24.59
58	15.39	17.51	19.93	23.72
59	14.74	16.81	19.20	22.87
60	14.10	16.12	18.48	22.02
61	13.47	15.44	17.76	21.18
62	12.86	14.78	17.06	20.36
63	12.26	14.14	16.37	19.54
64	11.67	13.51	15.68	18.73
65	11.10	12.90	15.01	17.94
66	10.54	12.31	14.36	17.16
67	10.00	11.73	13.71	16.39
68	9.47	11.17	13.08	15.64
69	8.97	10.64	12.46	14.90
70	8.48	10.12	11.86	14.18
71	8.00	9.63	11.28	13.47
72	7.55	9.15	10.71	12.78
73	7.11	8.69	10.15	12.11
74	6.68	8.24	9.61	11.45
75	6.27	7.81	9.09	10.82
76	5.88	7.39	8.58	10.20
77	5.49	6.98	8.10	9.60
78	5.11	6.59	7.63	9.02
79	4.74	6.21	7.17	8.47
80	4.39	5.85	6.74	7.93
81	4.05	5.51	6.32	7.42
82	3.71	5.19	5.92	6.93
83	3.39	4.89	5.54	6.46
84	3.08	4.60	5.18	6.01
85	2.77	4.32	4.84	5.58
86	2.47	4.06	4.51	5.18
87	2.18	3.80	4.20	4.79
88	1.91	3.55	3.90	4.43
89	1.66	3.31	3.62	4.09
90	1.42	3.06	3.36	3.77
91	1.19	2.82	3.12	3.47
92	0.98	2.58	2.88	3.19
93	0.80	2.33	2.67	2.92
94	0.64	2.07	2.47	2.68
95	0.50	1.80	2.28	2.45
96	--	1.51	2.10	2.24
97	--	1.18	1.94	2.05
98	--	0.83	1.79	1.87
99	--	0.50	1.65	1.71
100	--	--	1.52	1.56
101	--	--	1.40	1.42
102	--	--	1.29	1.30
103	--	--	1.20	1.19
104	--	--	1.10	1.09
105	--	--	1.02	0.99
106	--	--	0.94	0.91
107	--	--	0.86	0.83
108	--	--	0.75	0.73
109	--	--	0.50	0.50

Download the mortality tables (CSV)

Tables as codified in Georgia law; intentionally historic. Source: O.C.G.A. 24-14-44 (American Experience), 24-14-45 (CSO 1958, Annuity 1949).

Grand total

The Numbers Above Are Only the Starting Point.

The $16.1 billion total measures medical expenses and projected lost work. It does not measure everything taken when 1,502 lives end.

Loss	Included in the CDC fatality total?
Medical costs associated with death	Yes
Lost lifetime work	Yes
The person's lost experience of living	No
Pain and suffering	No
Loss of companionship or consortium	No
Grief suffered by family members	No
The full value of the person's life under Georgia law	No

Georgia's wrongful-death law asks a broader question than the CDC does: what was the full value of the life to the person who lost it?

No federal cost model can answer that. The CDC can estimate earnings that will never be produced. It cannot measure the birthdays, relationships, experiences and ordinary days that person will never have.

Those losses do not fit neatly on a government spreadsheet. In a courtroom, explaining them is the work of evidence, advocacy and ultimately a jury.

Talk to Wetherington Law Firm

The CDC's bill stops at economic loss. A full claim under Georgia law includes the damages no statutory table prices. If you've lost someone or been hurt in a crash, a conversation about what your claim is actually worth is free.

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Methodology & sources

Data current as of: CDC WISQARS Cost of Injury, fatal 2019-2024 (Georgia; costs in year-of-report dollars; extract 2026-07-14) and nonfatal 2023 (US national averages, the latest published; CDC publishes no state-level nonfatal costs); NHTSA FARS through the 2024 Annual Report File and the 2025 early estimate (both April 2026); Georgia mortality tables as codified at O.C.G.A. 24-14-44/45 (statutory, intentionally historic). The 2025 trend point is a projection anchored to the NHTSA counts. WISQARS publishes with a 1-2 year lag.

How these figures were compiled

Why the numbers differ between sources. The CDC and NHTSA do not count traffic deaths in exactly the same way. The CDC recorded 1,502 Georgia motor-vehicle deaths in 2024 using death certificates. NHTSA counted 1,403 traffic fatalities using police crash reports and its federal crash-classification rules. We use the CDC figure for all cost calculations because WISQARS connects its cost estimates directly to death-certificate data. We use NHTSA's 2023 final file for comparisons among states because it provides a consistent, crash-level national dataset.

Cost figures. CDC WISQARS Cost of Injury combined cost = medical cost + work loss (lifetime lost earnings, human-capital method). For nonfatal injuries the CDC adds a monetized lost-quality-of-life component, so combined = medical + work loss + lost quality of life. Fatal cost figures are Georgia; nonfatal cost figures are US national averages, because the CDC publishes no state-level nonfatal costs.

Two death counts. This page uses CDC WISQARS (1,502 Georgia traffic deaths in 2024, from death certificates) for all fatal cost figures, and NHTSA FARS (1,403 in the 2024 Annual Report File, from police crash reports, subject to final revision) for cross-state comparison. The peer-state bars use the FARS 2023 final file, the latest with final state-by-state rates. The precise national WISQARS rate is 12.13 per 100,000 and Georgia's is 13.43, a 10.7% gap.

Dollars. WISQARS costs are year-of-report dollars and are not inflation-adjusted across years. 2019-2024 are actuals. The 2025 point is a projection anchored to published federal counts: NHTSA's early estimate projects 1,307 Georgia deaths for 2025 against 1,403 in the 2024 Annual Report File. The death-certificate count is scaled by the same year-over-year change (2024 baseline: 1,502 WISQARS / 1,403 FARS ARF) and multiplied by the 2024 cost-per-death of about $10.73M. Nonfatal cost figures are US national 2023, the latest the CDC has published.

Mortality tables. The American Experience, CSO 1958, and Annuity 1949 tables as codified in Georgia evidence law. Under O.C.G.A. 24-14-45(c) they are admissible but not conclusive. The calculator's earnings default is Georgia's median annual earnings (U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 1-year estimate, table B20002: $45,204).

Suggested citation: Wetherington Law Firm, "What a Georgia Car Accident Really Costs," 2026, /car-accident-costs/. Data: CDC WISQARS Cost of Injury 2019-2024; NHTSA FARS 2024; Georgia mortality tables, O.C.G.A. 24-14-44/45.

A Wetherington Law Firm research report . Updated July 2026 . wfirm.com

What a Car Accident Really Costs