Paramus car accidents: Route 17, Route 4 and the worst county road corners
Paramus had 876 police-reported car accidents in 2023 and 2024 in which someone was hurt or killed, more than any other Bergen County town. They hurt 1,194 people and killed 8. Six in ten were on Route 17, Route 4 or the Garden State Parkway.
Rear-ended on Route 17 or Route 4, or hurt on a Paramus side street? Answer a few short questions, about 30 seconds, to see if a lawyer's office may review your claim for free.
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Does Paramus have more injury accidents than any other Bergen town?
Yes. Its 876 injury accidents in 2023 and 2024 top every town in Bergen County and rank Paramus 21st in New Jersey.
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| Year | All accidents | Someone hurt or killed | People hurt | People killed | Pedestrian accidents |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 2,058 | 443 | 602 | 4 | 10 |
| 2024 | 2,280 | 433 | 592 | 4 | 9 |
| 2025 (preliminary) | 2,234 | 411 | 544 | 1 | 8 |
The 2025 count is already 98 percent of 2024. Every Bergen town and road is compared on our Bergen County car accident hub, which also has a section on Hackensack, the next-busiest Bergen town.
How much of Bergen's Route 17 and Route 4 toll falls inside Paramus?
Nearly half of Route 4's and a third of Route 17's. Of Bergen's 387 Route 4 injury accidents in 2023 and 2024, 174 were in Paramus, along with 35 percent of Route 17's and 26 percent of the Parkway's. The rest of the road is on Route 4 crash data for every town.
Route 17 alone had 264 injury accidents in town. County roads as a group, led by Forest Avenue, Paramus Road, Fairview Avenue and Oradell Avenue, came close behind with 248.
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| Road group | Someone hurt or killed | Share of Paramus total | All accidents | People killed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Route 17 | 264 | 30% | 1,342 | 1 |
| County roads (Forest Ave, Paramus Rd, Fairview Ave, Oradell Ave and others) | 248 | 28% | 1,108 | 0 |
| Route 4 | 174 | 20% | 893 | 1 |
| Borough streets | 89 | 10% | 459 | 1 |
| Garden State Parkway | 88 | 10% | 429 | 3 |
| Private property | 5 | 1% | 56 | 1 |
| Other | 8 | 1% | 51 | 1 |
Only 56 of the 4,338 accidents in these two years were coded on private property, such as a store lot. A mall entrance crash is covered in our guide to a Route 4 or Route 17 crash during a Paramus shopping trip.
The whole highways are mapped on the Route 17 accident data page and the Garden State Parkway accident page. Route 4 runs west into Fair Lawn, with its own Route 208 and Route 4 data.
What should you do after getting rear-ended on Route 17 or Route 4?
Find out which agency is handling it and keep its paperwork, because rear-end crashes are 55 percent of Paramus injury accidents, against 35 percent across Bergen.
- Note the road and direction. A Route 17 or Route 4 crash and a Parkway crash can have different police agencies and different report routes.
- Ask the officer for the card or paperwork. It names the agency that holds your report.
- If police did not come out, the driver files an SR-1 self-report, explained in our New Jersey accident report guide, agency by agency.
See the full table
| Measure | Paramus | Bergen County (all towns) |
|---|---|---|
| Rear-end accidents | 55% | 35% |
| Same-direction sideswipes | 14% | 10% |
| Pedestrian accidents | 1.9% | 7.1% |
Who is at fault is not automatic: New Jersey splits fault by share. Our page on real fault splits in New Jersey crashes and our guide to rear-end accidents in New Jersey cover it.
When do most Paramus accidents happen?
Between 3 pm and 6 pm: Paramus logged 244 of its 876 injury accidents in those three hours, or 28 percent. November had the most of any month, 96.
Sunday is by far the quietest day, with 64 injury accidents in two years, while every other day logged between 121 and 149.
| Measure | Paramus | Bergen County (all towns) |
|---|---|---|
| Accidents on a Sunday | 7.3% | 11.5% |
| Accidents in November and December | 20.4% | 18.2% |
Which county road corners in Paramus see the most injuries?
Fairview Avenue at Midland Avenue and Oradell Avenue at Pascack Road, with 5 injury accidents each in 2024 and 2025. Forest Avenue (County Route 59) appears in three of the top six.
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| Street pair on the police report | Hurt or killed | All accidents | People hurt |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fairview Avenue (County Route 61) at Midland Avenue | 5 | 10 | 11 |
| Oradell Avenue (County Route 80) at Pascack Road (County Route 63) | 5 | 8 | 7 |
| Forest Avenue (County Route 59) at Howland Avenue | 3 | 11 | 5 |
| Forest Avenue (County Route 59) at Forest Ave Extension | 3 | 7 | 4 |
| Forest Avenue (County Route 59) at Midland Avenue (County Route 74) | 3 | 6 | 4 |
| Paramus Road (County Route 62) at Grove Street | 3 | 6 | 4 |
Another 20 street pairs are tied at 2. Our list of New Jersey intersections with the most injury accidents ranks corners the same way statewide.
Which Paramus road is the deadliest?
The Garden State Parkway: 3 of the 8 people killed in Paramus accidents in 2023 and 2024 died there, two of them in one 2024 crash.
Three of the 8 were pedestrians, on Route 17, private property and another road, and the one death in the 2025 records was a pedestrian on a county road. Paramus logged only 19 pedestrian accidents in 2023 and 2024, against 121 in Hackensack.4
If you were hit on foot, see help after a pedestrian accident in New Jersey.
How do I get a Paramus police accident report?
Paramus police reports are available online through CrashDocs or in person at police headquarters. Parkway crashes are not borough reports: they go through the State Police and Turnpike Authority portal.
- Paramus Police Department, 1 Carlough Drive, Paramus, NJ 07652, (201) 262-3400. Copies in person Monday to Friday, 8 am to 4 pm, or online through the CrashDocs service linked from its Police Reports page.
- Garden State Parkway. The 3 Parkway deaths in Paramus mean those reports come only by OPRA request. The fee and form are on our Garden State Parkway accident page; State Police reports on other roads are in the agency by agency report guide.5
Once you have it, our guide to reading the codes on a New Jersey crash report explains each box.
Paramus accident questions
Was there a car accident in Paramus today?
This page counts state crash records, not news. For a crash today, the Paramus Police Department is at (201) 262-3400.
Can you sue after a crash in a Paramus mall lot?
As on a road, a claim against the other driver depends on fault and on your policy's lawsuit option. Only 56 Paramus accidents in 2023 and 2024 were coded on private property. See what to do after a parking lot accident in New Jersey.
Is Route 17 or Route 4 worse in Paramus?
Route 17 has more injury accidents in town, 264 against 174 in 2023 and 2024. Route 4 is the more concentrated: 45 percent of its Bergen injury accidents happen inside Paramus.
What these numbers can and cannot tell you
The counts on this page are police-reported car accidents from NJDOT crash records, analyzed by us. They show where and when accidents where someone was hurt happened in Paramus. They do not show who was at fault in any accident, and they say nothing about whether you have a claim or what it could be worth.
Rules that apply anywhere in New Jersey
- Your own auto policy's PIP pays eligible medical expenses "no matter who caused the auto accident," up to your policy's limit and after its deductible and co-pay. If you chose your health insurance as primary, it pays first and PIP pays second. A claim against the other driver for pain and suffering is separate: it depends on fault and on the lawsuit option on your policy. 6
- Being partly at fault does not stop you from recovering, as long as your share is not greater than the other driver's, or the combined share of all the drivers you claim against (the "51 percent" rule). Your damages are reduced by your share. 7
- If someone is hurt or killed, or property damage to any one person is over $500, the driver must tell the police right away and send a written report to the Motor Vehicle Commission within 10 days, unless a police officer files one. If police did not investigate, New Jersey's SR-1 self-reporting form is the form for that. 8
- An injury lawsuit generally must be filed within two years, and a claim against a public body (a town, the state, NJ Transit) needs a written notice within 90 days. These are general rules with exceptions; check your own dates with a lawyer. 9
Next steps: how to get your New Jersey accident report, agency by agency, and how New Jersey no-fault (PIP) insurance works after an accident. This is general information, not legal advice.
Hurt in a car accident in Paramus? Take the 30-second New Jersey quiz to see if a lawyer's office may review your claim for free.
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Sources
- our analysis of NJDOT crash records 2023 to 2025 via hudcostreets/nj-crashes, fatal crashes supplemented from the NJ State Police feed; Bergen comparisons from our county count.
- our analysis of the NJDOT crash records via hudcostreets/nj-crashes, by NJDOT road system and route fields; Bergen highway shares from our county count.
- our analysis of the NJDOT crash records via hudcostreets/nj-crashes (injury accidents 2023 and 2024); crash type is the code on the police report.
- our analysis of the NJDOT crash records, fatal crashes supplemented from the NJ State Police feed; Hackensack count from our Bergen County count.
- Paramus Police Department, Police Reports and Contact Us, linked from the official Borough of Paramus site; NJSP and NJTA crash report requests portal.
- NJ DOBI Auto Insurance Buyer's Guide 2026, pp. 2, 6; DOBI health insurance as primary
- N.J.S.A. 2A:15-5.1; NJ DOBI comparative negligence FAQ
- N.J.S.A. 39:4-130; NJDOT self-reporting crash form
- N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2; N.J.S.A. 59:8-8
How we counted
- Records: NJDOT crash records (2023 archive, 2024 and 2025 Crash Data Portal) normalized by hudcostreets/nj-crashes, fatal crashes from the NJ State Police feed. Downloaded 6 November 2026. 2025 is preliminary.
- Scope: every crash NJDOT assigns to Paramus Borough, on all roads. "Hurt or killed" means at least one person injured or killed. Statewide rank is among municipality codes in the crash file.
- Intersections: 2024 and 2025 only, because NJDOT changed street naming after 2023; only crashes flagged as intersection crashes with both streets named. Spelling variants are not merged, so counts are a floor.
- Counts, not risk rates: no traffic volume, nothing about fault or what a claim is worth.