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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
Most Accidents Map

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
Most Injuries Map

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
Most Deaths Map

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
Most Deaths Map

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
200996813488961366
201087013048861437
201186614209491437
2012923157411151288
2013879141911961288
2014877127812021341
Total5383834362448157

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
200939543618310.92%
201036963473410.64%
201135703344610.67%
201237743352311.25%
201334463173110.86%
201434303118710.99%

DUI vs Non-DUI Deaths

Accidents Deaths Deaths/Accident
Non-DUI1789345370.30%
DUI218703621.66%

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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