In addition to being needlessly stressful, obligatory holiday travel poses an elevated risk of roadway mishaps. Inclement weather, congested highways, and overtaxed drivers traversing long distances is an exceptionally bad formula. We don’t have to spell it out further; you’ve likely seen seasonal roadside tragedies firsthand and been thankful it wasn’t you.
However, depending on where you’re making your holiday pilgrimage this year, the associated risks could be much higher or lower than someone traveling a few states over. Not all regions are created equal, and some parts of the United States appear to be particularly susceptible to road fatalities during annual festivities.
Avvo, a legal services outlet that conducts periodic safety-related research, compiled data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) for the entirety of 2016. Cross referencing it against U.S. Census information showed the Southern United States as the region with the most deaths per capita during major holidays.
Mississippi led all states in fatal crashes, with more than two accidents per 100,000 residents. Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina, and New Mexico also saw significantly higher rates than the rest of the country. While the data encompasses all major holidays, we already know the south has a problem with snowy weather. Since it doesn’t see much of the white stuff, southern governments don’t bother with the costly infrastructure required to cope with it. It doesn’t make sense to field a large number of salt trucks and plows when it’s more economical for the state to just shut everything down.
Southerners also don’t get a lot of practice driving on ice, which is further complicated by a regional market that doesn’t prioritize winter tires. “In the winter states, we advocate that drivers swap out their tires,” Sheri Herrmann, a communications coordinator with Continental, told CarInsurance.com in 2014. “We don’t sell a lot of snow tires in the South because they just don’t perform well in dry conditions. They’re OK. They’re just not optimal.”
There are also disparities between which state a driver originates from. Motorists from Wyoming were much more likely to be involved in holiday-related fatalities when traveling out-of-state — followed by residents from Washington D.C., Delaware, Mississippi, and Nevada.
However, while the colder season is more treacherous when stretched out as a whole, the winter holidays aren’t actually the most dangerous in terms of life-ending wrecks. People tend to stay put on Thanksgiving or Christmas, motoring cautiously on the days before or afterwards. That creates an opening for heavy-drinking holidays, like July 4th, where people venture home in the same evening. Independence Day the most likely to take a life, followed by Labor Day and Memorial Day.
So what can you do with this information? Other than worry more and use it to settle arguments with friends about which states have the worst drivers, not much. However, we hope you’ll take all of this into consideration when you’re out there (and take extra care if you’re in one of the sketchier states).
As the chart shows, people of the Midwest are better drivers than YOU PEOPLE from other places.
I’ll put my Colorado Wu Tang style up against your Shaolin Ohio skills any day. Bring da ruckus.
You better watch out, I have the beauty of all-wheel drive.
DOES YOUR JETTA
Who needs AWD with mad driving skills, yo?
BTW…submitted a “one year later” article on said Jetta the other day.
Oh good, if you sent it to the editors email address I’m sure Tim has seen it.
I’ll follow up with him.
Also have a idea for a new series.
Minnesota Miyagi-do skillz checking in. And yes, my M35x has AWD.
I got one of those too.
Muhahaha
Midwest- flat straight roads – that’s not driving.
Duluth disagrees
What this tells me is that your chances of getting killed while driving during the holidays is pretty low.
To date, all of my crashes have been in good weather when I’ve let my guard down.
I’ll submit that the increase in holiday crashes during *any* season is strongly correlated to alcohol consumption.
That, plus the number of people on the roads.
Interesting to note that here in Colorado, the most dangerous holiday is actually Labor Day, which makes total sense – lots of folks going up to the mountains over the long weekend.
The metric is stupid since it’s per residents. It should be per miles driven. Of course WA MA and NY will be low since those states have Boston and NYC and Seattle where a high % of people drive very little. Those 3 cities have a high % of people who use public transportation on a daily basis. In NYC a large % of people don’t even own a car.
On the other hand the worst 5 are states with no major metropolitan areas. Everyone drives everywhere.
In other words everyone drives in the worst 5 but not everyone drives in 4/5 top states. So measuring accidents per residents will of course skew the numbers in favor of states with fewer drivers.
Where is your holiday cheer?
Don’t ruin a nice story with logic and facts.
True, and one bad year in a lightly populated state might skew the stats. It’d be more useful to see the trends over time.
But higher death rates in states like Wyoming or Montana also make sense for another reason: more lightly traveled highways make for higher speeds.
The solution is simple. Just don’t travel over the holidays. Just stay home, eat ice cream, and binge watch Better Call Saul. Christmas is absolutely the most hellish time of year to travel. And, admit it, you can’t stand those relatives you’re dutifully going to visit. You’re like someone trudging to a firing squad. You can listen to Uncle Arvid drone on about bitcoin and Lemuria some other time.
New Mexico’s inclusion in the top 5 is purely because of drunk drivers.
Thank god I just have to travel across town this holiday season to get to the in-laws.
I live in Ontario and have a very strong desire to survive the “holiday” season. I do not, under any circumstances, step into a motor vehicle between 3 pm Dec 24 and 6 am Dec 26, nor do I hit the roads from 3 pm Dec 31 to 6 am Jan 2. so far, so good. no one has driven into the front of my house yet while we bunker up. The situation is absurd. Why does happiness = drunkenness?
New Mexico can be a little dicey, there was a bad wreck there in 1947.
We’re the best in the West despite rain, snow, ice, weed, craft brews, I-5, Millenials, and . . . elk (at least where I drive regularly).
We’re the best in the West despite rain, snow, ice, I-5, craft brews, weed, trains, millennials and ….elk (where I drive regularly)