It is tragic enough for any family to be grieving lost loved ones at Christmas — or on any other holy day in relation to one’s religion — but the thought of actually losing someone on one of those sacred days adds yet another layer to the horror.
What follow are links to brief details of crashes which cost human lives on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day* this year – 2020 – with victims’ names wherever available at the time of writing. This will by no means be a complete record, sadly just those tragedies we have been able to find out about, listed state by state.
The figures after the name of each linked state show how many crashes and how many victims we are currently aware of for each state but inevitably these figures will fall dramatically short of the real numbers. Please do not assume that any state shown without a hyperlink and without any numbers after it had no fatal crashes on either of the days in question. That outcome would be our fervent wish but it is much more likely that we have simply failed to find any mention of relevant victims at this stage.
If you feel able, please help us find out about other incidents and victims from December 24 and 25 — guidance will be given. See below the list.
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California — 7 / 8
Colorado — 1 / 1
Connecticut — 2 / 2
Delaware
Florida — 5 / 6
Georgia — 1 / 1
Hawaii — 1 / 1
Idaho — 1 / 1
Illinois
Indiana — 1 / 3
Iowa
Kansas — 1 / 2
Kentucky
Louisiana 1 / 1
Maine
Maryland — 1 / 1
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi — 1 / 2
Missouri — 4 / 5
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada — 1 / 1
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico — 1 / 1
New York — 3 / 3
North Carolina — 5 / 6
North Dakota
Ohio — 2 / 2
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania 1 / 1
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee — 2 / 2
Texas — 4 / 4
Utah — 1 / 1
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia — 1 / 2
Wisconsin — 1 / 1
Wyoming
The above figures will represent only about one quarter of the total number of road deaths for the two days in question, and as you will see if you view any individual states, many of the victims we have learned about are not identified.
Your VERY IMPORTANT HELP is Requested
If you know of any other such tragedies from December 24 or 25, 2020, for ANY of the States, please consider letting us know so that the details may be added. We cannot expect to find out about every such fatality, given that there will probably have been over 200 deaths during the two days in question, but we would like to show our respect to as many of them as possible, and offer our condolences to their devastated loved-ones.
If you feel up to helping us with this important task, please check that we have not already published the crash or the name/s, then send an e-mail showing the name of the state where the crash/es and the relevant news article URL/s, to: eddiew[at]roadsafetyusa.org This would be immensely helpful and very much appreciated.
Footnote
*There is an official ‘Christmas Day holiday period‘ each year, and this varies from 1.25 to 4.25 days in length, depending on which day of the week the holiday falls. In 2020, Christmas Day falls on a Friday, so the holiday period is 3.25 days and extends from 6 p.m. Thursday, December 24 to 11:59 p.m. Sunday, December 27. However, for the purpose of our memorial pages, Road Safety USA and our Road Victims USA website are using just the two calendar days of December 24 and 25 because our focus is on the people concerned, not statistics. [Christmas-related incidents could also be expected on 26 or 27 December, as people returned home from visiting their relatives, or in some cases, continued to ‘party.’]