San Angelo, TX

History of Accidents in San Angelo

Located in West Texas and with a population of around 100,000 residents, San Angelo sits, oasis-like just east of the oil-rich Permian Basin. Fed by regional roads and having a diffuse accident pattern, there are few "hot spots" in San Angelo for traffic collisions; likewise, the number of annual accidents that have occurred in the city between 2014 and 2018 have been relatively stable, ranging from between around 2,000 to 2,600. For the size of San Angelo, these traffic figures are rather standard, indicating the city is fairly typical in comparison to others.

However, there are aspects of San Angelo's accident history that are unique. Chief among them is that while, like the national trend, it exhibited overall growth over the last five years, year-on-year trends were quite different. There were 2,492 accidents in San Angelo in 2014, but the city posted two straight years of volume drops, first to 2,022 in 2015 and then even lower to 2,006 in 2016. This is the direct opposite of US trends in general, which saw a major spike in accidents from 2014 to 2016. Meanwhile, while the US saw its rates decline from 2017 and into 2018, San Angelo's jumped, first to 2,190 and then even higher to 2,616.

Again, while the path that San Angelo takes to get to higher overall traffic accidents over a five-year period might have been circuitous, the city does indeed get there. That puts it squarely in the same boat as the rest of the United States and reaffirms its status as a fairly typical city of its size when it comes to accident volume. It's true there's little correlation during the process, but there can be any number of local factors that might have played a role in this. These factors may be impossible to quantify.

History of Fatalities in San Angelo

Fatality figures in San Angelo over the past five years seem to be a little more regulated when compared to national averages, both year-on-year and from 2014 through 2018 overall. Like the US in general, San Angelo's fatality rate rose quickly and then eased off; fatalities across the country also peaked in 2016 before beginning to drop off in 2017 and beyond. However, there are some places where San Angelo's fatalities diverge.

Initially, at the beginning of the five-year period, San Angelo had a relatively high accident rate, which only got higher in a hurry. 2014 saw 7 fatalities, while 2015 had one more that year. 2016's fatal accident rate dropped in comparison with only 3 deaths, but this began to creep back up across 2017 and 2018, first to 4 and then to 5. This is markedly different from the 2016 peak and 2017-2018 dropoff pattern exhibited by the rest of the country.

Truth be told these fatality figures are still quite low for a city the size of San Angelo, even if they don't correlate exactly to US figures. Looking at 2018 alone makes San Angelo very safe for its population, as it only experienced around 5 deaths per 100,000 residents. Meanwhile, the US average for 2018 was 12.8 deaths per 100,000. This, along with its relatively modest accident volume, can provide San Angelo residents some peace of mind when it comes to driving safely in the city.