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Orange County Dangerous Intersections and Accident Statistics

The SWITRS (State-Wide Integrated Traffic Records System) is an online database of traffic incidents that take place in California. Bisnar Chase has compiled the data of all of the dangerous intersections in Orange County and is displaying it here to provide an awareness of specific dangers to motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists within Orange County. The following data is taken from an export of the SWITRS database from 2009-2014. All 2015 data is not yet available at the time of publication.

Orange County Intersection Statistics: 2009-2014: Contents

Intersection with the most Accidents

#	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

Intersections With The Most Injuries

#	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

Intersections With The Most Deaths

#	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

OC Streets With The Most Accidents

#	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

Insights from Intersection Data

Accidents More Frequent In Northwest OC

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.

Orange County City Data

Cities With The Most Accidents Per 1,000 People

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

Accident Breakdown

Pedestrian Accidents By City

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.

Motorcycle Accidents By City

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)

Bicycle Accidents By City

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.

Truck Accidents By City

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.

Accidents By Year

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

Type of Accident by Year

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

DUIs by Year

More information about DUIs

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%

DUI vs Non-DUI Deaths

	Accidents	Deaths	Deaths/Accident
Non-DUI	178934	537	0.30%
DUI	21870	362	1.66%

Non-DUI Accidents

One Death in Every

333.2

Accidents

DUI Accidents

One Death in Every

60.4

Accidents

OC residents have a 551% increased chance of dying in a car accident when one of the drivers is under the influence of alcohol.

DUIs by Hour*

* ~1% of accident data does not notate the hour of the accident.

Conclusion

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.

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