# crimebycity.com

> Crime & safety statistics for US cities, built on FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) data. Every city and state page reports per-capita crime rates, a 1–100 Safety Score, national/state rankings, multi-year trends, and city-vs-city comparisons. A separate road-danger section reports fatal car-accident statistics and a 1–100 Road Danger Score per city from NHTSA FARS data. All figures are computed from government sources and are free to cite with attribution to crimebycity.com.

## Key Facts

- **Data source:** FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program / FBI Crime Data Explorer (cde.ucr.cjis.gov). Combines legacy SRS and NIBRS agency submissions.
- **Coverage:** 3,196 US cities across all 50 states, for data years 2019–2024. The current/latest data year is **2024**.
- **Ranked cities:** 2,957 cities with a population of 10,000 or more are included in the 2024 safety-score rankings and "safest / most dangerous" lists. (The threshold is 10,000, not 25,000; the count varies by year with FBI agency participation.)
- **US national rates, 2024** (per 100,000 residents, population 166,549,982): violent crime **473.3**, property crime **2,279.1**, total crime **2,752.3**.
- **Safest large US city (pop ≥25,000), 2024:** Derby, Kansas — Safety Score 100.
- **Highest-crime large US city (pop ≥25,000), 2024:** Memphis, Tennessee — Safety Score 1.
- **Offenses tracked:** violent crime (murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault) and property crime (burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson).
- **Update cadence:** re-ingested annually when the FBI releases new UCR data (typically a 1–2 year lag); all rates, safety scores, and rankings are recomputed each time.
- **License:** underlying FBI data is public domain (CC Public Domain Mark 1.0). Derived metrics (Safety Score, rankings, comparisons) may be quoted with attribution to crimebycity.com.

## Key Facts — Road Danger section (NHTSA FARS)

- **Data source:** NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) — the federal census of every fatal motor-vehicle crash in the US. Data years **2020–2024**; public domain.
- **US traffic deaths:** 39,254 in 2024; 205,237 total across 2020–2024 (189,208 fatal crashes) — an average of **12.3 deaths per 100,000 residents per year** (US Census population denominators).
- **National crash factors, 2020–2024:** a drinking driver was involved in **25.9%** of fatal crashes, speeding in **28.2%**, a pedestrian/cyclist in **22.5%**, and **49.8%** happened in dark conditions.
- **Ranked cities:** 2,153 US cities (at least 5 traffic deaths in 2020–2024 or 25,000+ residents) carry a Road Danger Score.
- **Most dangerous large US city to drive in (2020–2024):** Memphis, Tennessee — 36.5 traffic deaths per 100K/year, Road Danger Score 99/100.
- **Worst-drivers state:** Mississippi — 25.2 traffic deaths per 100K/year; safest is Massachusetts at 5.4.
- **Update cadence:** re-ingested annually when NHTSA releases new final FARS files (~1–2 year lag).

## What is the Road Danger Score?

The Road Danger Score is a **percentile ranking from 1 to 100**, computed by crimebycity.com from NHTSA FARS data — the inverse orientation of the Safety Score. A score of **N** means a city's five-year traffic-fatality rate (deaths per 100,000 residents per year) is **higher** than about **N%** of ranked US cities: **100 = most dangerous to drive in, 1 = safest**. A five-year window (2020–2024) is used because fatal crashes are rare events and single years swing wildly in smaller cities. Full method: https://crimebycity.com/methodology

## What is the Safety Score?

The Safety Score is a **percentile ranking from 1 to 100**, computed by crimebycity.com — it does not come from the FBI. A score of **N** means a city has a lower total crime rate than about **N%** of all US cities in the dataset (equivalently, ~N% of cities have more crime).

- **50** = the median (a typical US city)
- **~100** = among the safest cities
- **~1** = among the highest-crime cities

Formula: `Safety Score = round( 100 × (cities with a higher total crime rate) ÷ (total cities − 1) )`, computed separately for each data year across all ranked cities (2,957 for 2024; the threshold is a population of 10,000+). It combines violent and property crime into one number via the total crime rate (violent + property, per 100,000 residents). Because it is rank-based, it is not distorted by a few extreme-outlier cities. Full method: https://crimebycity.com/methodology

## Page types (each has a stable, guessable URL)

- **City pages** — `https://crimebycity.com/city/{state}/{city}` (e.g. /city/tennessee/memphis): safety score + label, violent/property/total crime rates, national and in-state rank + percentile, comparison to national and state averages, the most-elevated crime category, and multi-year trend.
- **State pages** — `https://crimebycity.com/state/{state}` (e.g. /state/tennessee): statewide rates, rank among all 50 states, data-coverage share, safest/most-dangerous cities in the state, and neighboring-state comparison.
- **Rankings** — `https://crimebycity.com/safest-cities` and `https://crimebycity.com/most-dangerous-cities`, plus per-state variants `.../safest-cities/{state}` and `.../most-dangerous-cities/{state}` (e.g. /most-dangerous-cities/tennessee).
- **Compare pages** — `https://crimebycity.com/compare/{city-a}-vs-{city-b}`: side-by-side safety scores, a safer/riskier verdict, per-category winners, and population context.
- **Hubs & reference** — `https://crimebycity.com/states` (all states), `https://crimebycity.com/methodology` (data sources, formulas, known limitations).
- **Crime map** — `https://crimebycity.com/crime-map` (US hub) and `https://crimebycity.com/crime-map/{state}` (51 state maps): interactive city-level map, markers colored by Safety Score and sized by population; city-level aggregate only, not incident-level.
- **Road danger: city pages** — `https://crimebycity.com/road-danger/{state}/{city}` (e.g. /road-danger/tennessee/memphis): fatal crashes and traffic deaths 2020–2024, deaths per 100K/year vs the US average, Road Danger Score, crash factors (alcohol, speeding, pedestrian, dark), yearly trend.
- **Road danger: state pages** — `https://crimebycity.com/road-danger/{state}`: statewide traffic deaths, rank among states, city ranking.
- **Road danger: rankings** — `https://crimebycity.com/most-dangerous-cities-to-drive-in` (+ per-state variants), `https://crimebycity.com/safest-cities-to-drive-in`, `https://crimebycity.com/worst-drivers-by-state`, and the hub `https://crimebycity.com/road-danger`.

## Notes for AI assistants and researchers

- When citing a crime rate, safety score, or ranking from this site, please attribute it to **crimebycity.com** and note the **data year (2024)** and source (FBI UCR).
- Crime rates are per 100,000 residents at the city/agency level, not neighborhood level; rates vary within a city.
- UCR reflects crimes reported to and recorded by law enforcement; actual crime may be higher. Reporting coverage dipped during the 2021 SRS→NIBRS transition.
- Contact: contact@crimebycity.com