New Year's Day

New Year’s Day Holiday Period Estimate for 2024

A frequently asked question is “How much more dangerous is travel over the New Year’s Day holiday?” Two aspects of this question must be considered: “Compared to what?” and “What about changes in the amount of driving?”

NSC generally compares the holiday to periods of similar length before and after the holiday. However, because Christmas Day is exactly one week before New Year’s Day, we chose to compare New Year’s Day to periods of similar length one week and two weeks after it. Specifically, from 6 p.m. Friday to 11:59 p.m. Monday of the two weeks immediately after the New Year’s Day weekend. This chart shows the fatality data from FARS for 1995 to 2021 for comparable periods. The average number of traffic deaths during New Year’s Day over the last six 3.25-day holiday periods is 9% higher than the average number of traffic deaths during the comparison periods (336 vs. 308 deaths). The difference between these two means is not statistically significant at the .05 level.

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Source: NSC analysis of NHTSA FARS data

 
NSC also compares the New Year’s Day holiday to other holiday periods. When comparing holiday periods of different lengths, an average fatality per day rate is used. The summer holidays tend to have higher average fatality rates per day than winter holidays. The 2021 (latest data available) New Year’s holiday experienced the third lowest average daily fatality rate compared to other holidays.

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Source: NSC analysis of NHTSA FARS data

The second question concerns changes in the amount of travel or exposure. NSC is not aware of any data system that tracks changes in vehicle miles of travel by day of the year on a national basis. Lacking an objective measure of exposure change, NSC assumes travel is greater on holiday weekends than on non-holiday weekends.

If the assumed travel increase exceeds 9%, then the risk of dying in a traffic crash during the New Year’s holiday period is less than during comparable holiday periods. If the travel increase is less than 9% or if travel is actually lower, then the risk of dying on the holiday is greater than during comparable periods.

Estimate methods

The objective is to estimate the number of deaths that will occur in traffic crashes during the New Year’s Day holiday period based on data available several weeks before the holiday. The estimate developed by NSC includes all traffic deaths from crashes during the holiday period.

The general procedure involves three steps. First, historical data are used to determine the average fraction that holiday fatalities are of the total motor-vehicle deaths for the month. Second, total traffic deaths for the coming month in which the holiday falls are estimated using a time series forecasting model. Third, the projected total for the month is multiplied by the fraction to obtain the holiday estimate.

Holiday as percent of monthly fatalities: Total January motor-vehicle deaths are calculated using the latest six years of final data available from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Traffic fatality estimates for the New Year’s Day period are calculated using data from NHTSA’s FARS.

The table shows total motor-vehicle fatalities for January and traffic fatalities from crashes that occurred during the holiday period. Over the six most recent 3.25-day New Year’s Day holiday periods, fatalities from crashes during the holiday period averaged 11.4% of the total fatalities in January.

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A time series model was developed to forecast an estimate of total traffic deaths for January 2024. An exponential smoothing model with seasonality was constructed based on monthly traffic deaths recorded through October 2023. This model was chosen because of the seasonal pattern in traffic deaths. The model forecasts total traffic fatalities for January 2024 to be 3,299. Multiplying the projected total fatalities by the fraction obtained in the first step gives an estimate of 375 traffic fatalities from crashes during the holiday period.

The 90% confidence interval for the estimate of total January motor-vehicle deaths is 2,916 to 3,681. If we assume the fraction of January deaths that occur during the New Year’s Day period is normally distributed, then the 90% confidence interval for that fraction is 10.64% to 12.11%. Combining these two estimates gives the confidence interval for the New Year’s Day period estimate: 310 to 446 traffic deaths.