What Time Do Alcohol-Related Crashes Happen in Arizona?

The late evening and early morning stand out across six years of Arizona crash data, not just a single year.

Last updated November 6, 2026 · Arizona statewide · Data: 2019–2024 · Source: ADOT

71.7% of alcohol-related crashes happened at night between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. from 2019–2024. The busiest single hour was 2–3 a.m., with 2,500 crashes across the six years.

Alcohol-related crashes by hour of day

Average crashes per year during each hour · Arizona, 2019–2024

12 AM

339.2

1 AM

337.7

2 AM

416.7

3 AM

216.0

4 AM

157.8

5 AM

110.8

6 AM

88.0

7 AM

77.5

8 AM

58.0

9 AM

53.7

10 AM

69.5

11 AM

74.8

12 PM

100.7

1 PM

117.8

2 PM

152.3

3 PM

193.7

4 PM

233.3

5 PM

282.8

6 PM

364.2

7 PM

350.8

8 PM

378.5

9 PM

393.5

10 PM

380.2

11 PM

353.0

Each bar represents the average annual number of crashes during the hour beginning at the labeled time. The sum of all 24 hourly values equals the average annual total, not the daily average.

What the numbers show

2–3 a.m. had the most crashes. ADOT recorded 2,500 alcohol-related crashes in that hour across six years, an average of 416.7 per year.

Evenings were also consistently busy. The 9–10 p.m. hour had 2,361 crashes across the period, averaging 393.5 per year. The late-night spike is not confined to a single hour or year.

About seven in ten crashes occurred at night. Using 6 p.m.–6 a.m. as the nighttime window, 22,790 of 31,803 reported alcohol-related crashes occurred at night (71.7%).

The quietest hour was 9 AM. The morning hours had substantially fewer reported alcohol-related crashes than the late-night hours.

These figures are crash counts, not the chance that any particular driver will crash. Road traffic differs by hour, and an alcohol-related crash classification does not prove legal intoxication.

Sources, calculations and downloadable data

Sources: Arizona Department of Transportation, Motor Vehicle Crash Facts, Table 6-14 for each year, 2019–2024.

We transcribed each year's total alcohol-related crashes by hour and validated that all 24 hourly values sum to that year's published annual count. Across the six years, the tables total 31,803 crashes. The chart displays hourly counts summed across years and divided by six to produce the average annual number in each hour.

Nighttime refers to 6 p.m.–6 a.m. ADOT's alcohol-related designation is based on reports that alcohol consumption was involved; it does not necessarily establish legal intoxication. Differences in traffic volume by hour and the effects of the 2020 pandemic are not adjusted for.

Download annual hourly counts (CSV) · Download 2024-only hourly data (CSV)

Data cover 2019–2024 only; they do not include 2025–2026 or provide individual holiday counts.