Pearland, TX

History of Accidents in Pearland

Just south of Houston and a stone's throw from the Gulf Coast, the city of Pearland is home to around 120,000. Many of these proud Texans are car owners, and as a result, a number of car accidents occur every year in the city. Yet for a city of its size, the number of accidents it experiences per year was slightly below average in comparison. In fact, from 2014 through 2015 Pearland never experienced more than 2000 accidents in a 12-month period.

As far as how these years broke down, the overall trend in Pearland for accident volume has increased. 2014 saw just 1,351 recorded crashes, and every subsequent year this figure rose. 2015's annual accident volume hit 1,442; the number of accidents in 2016 increased to 1,555. These increases were steady, as they went up by approximately 100 more accidents a year, but this trend would change in 2017 when there were 1,734 traffic collisions. Meanwhile, 2018 saw another high increase with a total of 1,978 accidents. This might seem alarming at first, as simply looking at these numbers can easily lead you to believe that there's a major problem in Pearland's road safety. However, the truth is that there has been a national rise in accident figures over this same period of time, with the NHTSA revealing that US accident rates for 2015 were 7.2 percent higher than they were in 2014, and that they continued to rise the following year.

The national rise was attributed to an increase in overall economic stability, which made it more affordable to drive for the average American. The unfortunate side effect of having so many more cars on the road, though, was that accident rates increased as well. However, these annual rates across the nation peaked in 2016 before exhibiting two years of negative growth, which differentiates Pearland as the city bucked that trend by experiencing uninhibited accident growth.

History of Fatalities in Pearland

While the city's accident rates seem to be rising unabated, the fatality rates for Pearland tell a different story, one that is much more in tune with the rest of the country. Federal government statistics reveal that fatal accident volume correlated strongly with the overall number of accidents per year, experiencing a peak in 2016 before beginning to drop in 2017 and 2018. Pearland's fatality rates show much of the same pattern, as the number of deadly crashes in 2014 and 2015 were just two per year. These rates then went up to a high of 5 in 2016 before going down to 4 in 2017 and then returning to 2 in 2018.

It's evident that Pearland is experiencing heightened accident rates today than they did in 2014. It's also clear that this is not in line with national averages. However, despite the increase in annual accident rates, the severity of these accidents may have experienced a slight increase before returning to baseline. With Pearland's fatalities much more in line with national trends, it shows that the city has not necessarily become a more dangerous place to drive even as the likelihood of getting into an accident seems to have increased.