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# | Intersection | Accidents | Injuries | Deaths | City |
1 | Harbor Blvd & Chapman Ave | 68 | 47 | 0 | Anaheim |
2 | Jamboree Rd & Bristol St | 54 | 41 | 1 | Newport Beach |
3 | Harbor Blvd & La Palma Ave | 53 | 72 | 0 | Anaheim |
4 | Euclid St & Slater Ave | 52 | 56 | 0 | Fountain Valley |
5 | Bristol St & Birch St | 49 | 48 | 0 | Newport Beach |
6 | Magnolia St & Chapman Ave | 46 | 40 | 0 | Garden Grove |
7 | La Habra Blvd & Cypress St | 46 | 48 | 0 | La Habra |
8 | Harbor Blvd & Lincoln Ave | 45 | 61 | 0 | Anaheim |
9 | Euclid St & Malvern Ave | 43 | 45 | 1 | Fullerton |
10 | Newland St & Slater Ave | 43 | 59 | 0 | Fountain Valley |
# | Intersection | Accidents | Injuries | Deaths | City |
1 | Harbor Blvd & La Palma Ave | 53 | 72 | 0 | Anaheim |
2 | Yorktown Ave & Magnolia St | 41 | 70 | 0 | Huntington Beach |
3 | Harbor Blvd & Lincoln Ave | 45 | 61 | 0 | Anaheim |
4 | Newland St & Slater Ave | 43 | 59 | 0 | Fountain Valley |
5 | Newland St & Ellis Ave | 37 | 59 | 0 | Fountain valley |
6 | Euclid St & Slater Ave | 52 | 56 | 0 | Fountain Valley |
7 | Adams Ave & Bushard St | 34 | 52 | 1 | Huntington beach |
8 | La Habra Blvd & Cypress St | 46 | 48 | 0 | La Habra |
9 | Bristol St & Birch St | 49 | 48 | 0 | Newport Beach |
10 | Harbor Blvd & Chapman Ave | 68 | 47 | 0 | Anaheim |
# | Intersection | Accidents | Injuries | Deaths | City |
1 | Orangethorpe Ave & Lemon St | 36 | 34 | 4 | Fullerton |
2 | La Palma Ave & Buena Park Downtown | 43 | 46 | 2 | Buena Park |
3 | Bushard St & Ellis Ave | 34 | 34 | 2 | Fountain Valley |
4 | La Habra Blvd & Euclid St | 28 | 37 | 2 | La Habra |
5 | Rio Vista St & Lincoln Ave | 24 | 26 | 2 | Anaheim |
6 | Crescent Ave & Knott Ave | 23 | 19 | 2 | Buena Park |
7 | 1st St & Sullivan St | 20 | 24 | 2 | Santa Ana |
8 | Orangethorpe Ave & Rose Dr | 15 | 12 | 2 | Placentia |
9 | Cabrillo Park Dr & Fruit St | 6 | 2 | 2 | Santa Ana |
10 | Culver Dr & Irvine Blvd | 39 | 45 | 1 | Irvine |
# | Street | Accidents |
1 | Beach Blvd | 4884 |
2 | Harbor Blvd | 3322 |
3 | Highway 1 | 2732 |
4 | Euclid St | 2470 |
5 | Brookhurst St | 2426 |
6 | Chapman Ave | 2354 |
7 | Magnolia St | 2121 |
8 | Imperial Highway | 1896 |
9 | Warner Ave | 1847 |
10 | Edinger Ave | 1621 |
11 | Jamboree Rd | 1508 |
12 | Main St | 1385 |
13 | La Palma Rd | 1311 |
14 | Katella Ave | 1232 |
15 | Garden Grove Blvd | 1181 |
The accident data for all of the intersections in Orange County reveals an interesting fact - most of the dangerous intersections in Orange County are located in a line in a the western half of the county, most notably in Anaheim and Fountain Valley. This is supported by our analysis of the streets with the most accidents - Beach Blvd and Harbor Blvd have more accidents by far than any other arterial street, and run North and South where many of the dangerous intersections lie. Naturally, the longer OC streets like Beach and Harbor will be the ones to accumulate the most accidents, but streets of comparable length in southeast OC like Alicia Pkwy in Mission Viejo or Crown Valley Pkwy in Laguna Niguel do not have nearly as many accidents. (See The Data)
It is also interesting to note that many accidents occur with gridded streets. For example, our image of the most dangerous streets above shows several grid squares of about a square mile each. There is some speculation that planned communities like Irvine purposefully designed their roads to not all be straight, as curving roads can naturally slow drivers down and prevent accidents. If this is true, it would explain why the winding roads of southern OC have fewer car accidents.
This table provides a reference for how likely the residents of a city are to get into a car accident. At the top of the list, Seal Beach residents are 11 times more likely to get into an accident in the city than residents of Villa Park. Why Calculate This Way?
Rank | City | Accidents | Population | Accidents / 1,000 People |
Most Accidents Per 1,000 People | ||||
1 | Seal Beach | 4159 | 24605 | 169 |
2 | Laguna Beach | 2813 | 23250 | 120.9 |
3 | Brea | 4898 | 40963 | 119.5 |
4 | Fountain Valley | 5533 | 56707 | 97.5 |
5 | Los Alamitos | 1126 | 11652 | 96.6 |
Fewest Accididents Per 1,000 People | ||||
30 | Rancho Santa Margarita | 1164 | 49228 | 23.6 |
31 | Cypress | 1060 | 49087 | 21.5 |
32 | Aliso Viejo | 971 | 50175 | 19.3 |
33 | Laguna Woods | 293 | 16400 | 17.8 |
34 | Villa Park | 87 | 5951 | 14.6 |
With it's small population and high amount of tourist foot-traffic, it is no surprise that Laguna Beach tops the list of most pedestrian accidents. Santa Ana also has a high amount of foot traffic for its population, but follows at less than half of Laguan Beach's rate.
The safest cities for pedestrians are Yorba Linda, Laguna Woods, and Aliso Viejo. This area features a lower population density and therefore has much less foot traffic than some of the northern cities in OC.
Though Seal Beach reports the highest rate of motorcycle accidents in OC, it actually has one of the lowest rates of injuries in motorcycle accidents. 70% of Seal Beach motorcycle crashes result in an injury, compared to an average of 90% in La Habra, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa. (See The Data)
Bicyclists in the OC have about a 10% higher chance of being injured when struck by a vehicle compared to motorcycles. The worst city for bicycle riders is Newport Beach, where 97% of all bicycle accidents involve an injury, and there have been 9 biker deaths in the past 6 years.
In general, a higher daily average of truck traffic through a city correlates with a higher occurance of truck accidents. However, this is not true for Laguna Beach, which sits third on our list. According to City-Data.com, Laguna Beach only gets 7,000 trucks passing through daily, compared to the 184,000 that Seal Beach has. These accidents are possibly caused by Laguna Beach's crowded and narrow streets, which may be difficult for truck drivers to navigate.
In general, the number of OC accidents has decreased by 16% from 2009-2014, but there are several cities that have shown increases in accidents in those 6 years, as shown below.
City | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 |
Aliso Viejo | 165 | 157 | 198 | 157 | 133 |
Anaheim | 4706 | 4499 | 4986 | 4928 | 4467 |
Brea | 751 | 831 | 902 | 861 | 839 |
Buena Park | 1195 | 1009 | 895 | 904 | 957 |
Costa Mesa | 1618 | 1392 | 1482 | 1419 | 1207 |
Cypress | 192 | 175 | 193 | 124 | 190 |
Dana Point | 298 | 334 | 404 | 358 | 375 |
Fountain Valley | 1003 | 921 | 954 | 853 | 804 |
Fullerton | 1532 | 1414 | 1602 | 1625 | 1686 |
Garden Grove | 2087 | 2150 | 2198 | 2069 | 2106 |
Huntington Beach | 2480 | 2525 | 2019 | 1703 | 1740 |
Irvine | 2258 | 2208 | 2167 | 2218 | 2245 |
La Habra | 535 | 562 | 548 | 532 | 509 |
La Palma | 192 | 165 | 150 | 63 | 57 |
Laguna Beach | 554 | 475 | 433 | 371 | 438 |
Laguna Hills | 451 | 509 | 459 | 429 | 349 |
Laguna Niguel | 296 | 253 | 276 | 257 | 199 |
Laguna Woods | 64 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 32 |
Lake Forest | 481 | 462 | 491 | 491 | 451 |
Los Alamitos | 187 | 125 | 115 | 187 | 242 |
Mission Viejo | 855 | 865 | 893 | 889 | 826 |
Newport Beach | 1075 | 890 | 847 | 800 | 827 |
Orange | 1779 | 1709 | 1734 | 1756 | 1728 |
Placentia | 427 | 398 | 430 | 382 | 318 |
Rancho Santa Margarita | 212 | 185 | 202 | 167 | 180 |
San Clemente | 658 | 567 | 634 | 594 | 621 |
San Juan Capistrano | 455 | 355 | 420 | 418 | 493 |
Santa Ana | 3096 | 2942 | 3200 | 3033 | 3144 |
Seal Beach | 622 | 815 | 751 | 692 | 670 |
Stanton | 265 | 311 | 249 | 230 | 203 |
Tustin | 1211 | 1169 | 1139 | 1003 | 948 |
Villa Park | 9 | 5 | 17 | 18 | 18 |
Westminster | 1522 | 1685 | 1253 | 1000 | 1034 |
Yorba Linda | 308 | 326 | 337 | 245 | 194 |
Year | Pedestrian | Bicycle | Motorcycle | Truck |
2009 | 968 | 1348 | 896 | 1366 |
2010 | 870 | 1304 | 886 | 1437 |
2011 | 866 | 1420 | 949 | 1437 |
2012 | 923 | 1574 | 1115 | 1288 |
2013 | 879 | 1419 | 1196 | 1288 |
2014 | 877 | 1278 | 1202 | 1341 |
Total | 5383 | 8343 | 6244 | 8157 |
The general trend of DUI accidents has been on the decline since 2009, but when looking at DUIs as a percentage of all the accidents in the OC, it is possible that this decline is merely caused by the decreased number of accidents overall, not an improvement in awareness of driving under the influence or in people's decisions whether to drive or not when they are under the influence.
Year | DUIs | Total Accidents | % of Accidents |
2009 | 3954 | 36183 | 10.92% |
2010 | 3696 | 34734 | 10.64% |
2011 | 3570 | 33446 | 10.67% |
2012 | 3774 | 33523 | 11.25% |
2013 | 3446 | 31731 | 10.86% |
2014 | 3430 | 31187 | 10.99% |
Accidents | Deaths | Deaths/Accident | |
Non-DUI | 178934 | 537 | 0.30% |
DUI | 21870 | 362 | 1.66% |
One Death in Every
333.2
Accidents
One Death in Every
60.4
Accidents
* ~1% of accident data does not notate the hour of the accident.
This data is provided as a service to Orange County drivers to show some of driving dangers in different cities. The data shows that in general, car accidents are less frequent as you go south through Orange County, due to the higher population density in the northern area. It also shows that DUIs make up about 10% of all car accidents and though they have been declining in the past 6 years, DUIs are responsible for almost as many deaths as regular car accidents, while happening 90% less frequently. Seal Beach, Brea, and Laguna Beach have shown to be cities with higher instances of accidents, especially those accidents involving motorcycles and trucks.
If you would like to see more information about Orange County accidents and the circumstances surrounding them, please contact Bisnar Chase here and request the specific information you require. We can also send you our spreadsheets that we used to compile this data so you can do your own analysis of the traffic incidents from the past 6 years. We welcome any comments or recommendations to improve this data so that we can benefit the community around us.