Do cars kill people? Maybe. Or maybe just people driving cars kill people. For today, I’ll leave the philosophy of that dilemma alone.
The invisible scale of deaths caused by vehicular crashes in Hawai‘i since statehood interests me more. Like many columns, this one is inspired by an unanswered question.
In late October, a 37-year-old man is killed in a motorcycle collision in Kīhei on Maui. The night before, a 71-year-old woman is a pedestrian fatality in Hilo. They are two among many dozens killed so far in 2026.
Such deaths are reported on a routine basis, and every story adds to a tragic tally in the grand scheme of history.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) documents the scope of death on Hawai‘i’s roads, tracking fatalities on an annual basis back to 1994. Within the NHTSA, some data dating back to 1975 is maintained by the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS).
State data books are another source of perspective. The 1984 Data Book section on transportation documents all traffic fatalities from 1973 through 1983, and an earlier section from 1975 dates back to 1959. Similar sections from books issued in 1996, 1999, 2019, and 2024 provide a full picture of the entire period up to 2023.
Traffic fatalities appear to be largely declining in Hawai‘i. In 1975, there were 144 traffic fatalities, while an August 2025 report found that they had declined to 93 fatalities in 2023. The drop between these two points in time was 35%.
The improvement is more remarkable when you consider that from 1975 to 2023, the state’s population rose from about 868,400 to 1.44 million residents. Even with more than half a million additional people, traffic deaths on a per capita basis have declined over the decades. In Hawai‘i, the NHTSA found that the fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled between 1975 and 2023 fell 74%.
Total fatalities on an annual basis may still rise. In 2024, the U.S. Department of Transportation observed that the tally of fatalities rose to 102 people (marking a 9.7% increase between 2023 and 2024). By the end of 2025, a total of 129 people had been killed.
From 1973 to 2023, 6,666 people were killed in traffic collisions. Looking at the period from statehood to 2023, the figure rises to 8,275 people.
When data from 2024 and 2025 is factored into the tally, the figure rises to 8,506 deaths.
And so a columnist added some numbers. What was the point of this mathematical exercise? What emerges from the full picture of a tragedy that unfolds over the course of weeks that turn to months, months that turn to years, and years that turn to decades?
Traffic deaths are so normal that they are to be expected. Our society is car-dependent, but the number still scares me. It should scare anyone.
We should at least have the courage, as a culture, to know the number. Other numbers are much easier to register. For instance, the state Department of Health reports that 2,244 fatalities in Hawai‘i were linked to COVID-19 as of June 12, 2025. In that instance, the pace of the loss of life was much more rapid and dramatic.
Traffic deaths occur on a gradual and independent basis, so their part in a larger story remains invisible. Perhaps that makes the scale of these deaths so much darker.
I’m scared of driving, but I still drive. That doesn’t mean I should forget that driving is deadly. Desensitization to the manner of such deaths is the product of our habituation to the automobile’s inherent danger.
We’ll still drive cars. We’ll turn car keys while engines ignite. The tally runs.
Perry Arrasmith can be reached at hello@perryarrasmith.com.
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