The 17 States With The Most Dangerous Roads

According to data gathered by the U.S. Department of Transportation and analyzed by the IIHS, 42,514 people died on U.S. roads in 2022. The IIHS' report was published in 2024, and includes state-by-state data on road fatalities including both the occupants of vehicles and other road users like pedestrians and bicyclists. It doesn't pin down the root cause of every fatal accident, but it does offer plenty of insights as to what factors contribute to fatal collisions in different states, such as alcohol consumption, seat belt use, vehicle type, and crash type. 

The average death rate across the U.S. is 1.33 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, but some states have a far higher fatality rate. In the report, 17 states had a fatality rate of 1.5 deaths or more per 100 million miles. Various states have launched new safety programs aimed at reducing the number of road fatalities since the data was gathered in 2022, but according to the IIHS analysis, these 17 states had the highest level of road deaths across all types of road users at the time of the study.

While it isn't subject to quite as many deaths per 100 million miles as the very worst-ranked states in America, Nevada's fatality rate is still significantly above the national average, at 1.50 per 100 million miles. According to the report, car occupants made up only 28% of reported fatalities in 2022, while pickup and SUV occupants made up 22%. A further 21% of reported fatalities were motorcyclists, with Nevada being one of only five states in the country where motorcyclists accounted for 20% or more of the total reported figure. Another 20% of Nevada's road fatalities were pedestrians, while 4% were bicyclists. Just 2% of fatalities were occupants of a large truck.

Urban areas in Nevada see significantly higher fatality levels than rural areas, with 70% of fatalities taking place on urban roads. Nevada's authorities are aware of the state's higher than average rate of fatalities, and implemented a new version of its Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) in 2021. According to its website, the plan aims to focus on eight key areas of road safety, including cracking down on speeding and impaired driving, boosting awareness of motorcycle safety, and improving roads for pedestrians.

At first glance, Alaska's road fatality figures seem less problematic than many of the other states in the report. Just 82 deaths were recorded on the state's roads in 2022, a stark contrast to the 4,428 deaths reported in California, the highest number in the country. However, Alaska's small population means that, per 100 million vehicle miles travelled, its fatality rate is still among the worst in the country. In fact, it's worse than California, which averaged 1.4 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles travelled.

67% of fatalities were recorded as the occupants of cars, pickups, and SUVs, with that figure accounting for both drivers and passengers. Motorcyclists and pedestrians made up a relatively small percentage of deaths compared to national levels, comprising 10% and 16%, respectively. Over half of the state's fatal crashes were recorded as being multiple-vehicle crashes, and despite Alaska's limited urban area, 50% of fatal crashes took place on urban roads.

Texas, the second most populous state in America with over 30 million residents, also has one of the highest annual road fatality rates in the country. According to the report, 4,408 fatalities were recorded in Texas in 2022, giving the state an overall death rate of 1.52 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles travelled. Fatalities were nearly evenly divided between single-vehicle and multi-vehicle collisions, with almost two-thirds of fatal crashes occurring on urban roads.

A recent safety campaign by the Texas Department of Transportation highlighted the state's fatality rate, noting that at least one person had died on Texan roads every single day since Nov. 7, 2000. One particular area of concern for the campaign is drunk driving, with the IIHS report estimating that 38% of all fatal collisions involved a driver proven to be impaired.

Much like Texas, Florida has both a large population and a large tally of annual road deaths, with 22.2 million citizens residing there in 2022 and 3,530 recorded road deaths that year. According to the IIHS report, that equated to 1.55 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles driven. Florida also had a high number of pedestrian deaths, recording 773 deaths over a year, the third highest number in the country behind Texas and California.

Fatalities in Florida were much more likely to occur in urban areas, with 77% of fatal accidents recorded on urban roads. Although weather conditions are not covered in the IIHS report, one potential reason for Florida's high fatality rate might be the state's extreme weather conditions. Alongside hurricanes and flooding, parts of Florida also experience unusually heavy rainfall, which led autonomous vehicle startup Waymo to use Miami as its base for testing its systems in heavy rain in 2019.

Unlike many of the worst performing states for road fatality rates, the majority of Kentucky's fatal accidents take place on rural roads. According to the report, 65% of those accidents occurred in rural areas, with 34% in urban areas and around 1% unknown. The majority of fatally injured occupants were not wearing a seat belt, which use tiny explosives to save lives. According to the report, drunk driving is not as common a cause of fatal accidents in Kentucky as it is in other states, with just 22% of fatalities recorded as being caused by an impaired driver. That figure is among the very lowest in the country.

Kentucky's Office of Highway Safety provides up-to-date figures about road fatalities in the state, and so it's possible to compare the latest figures with the data from 2022. As of writing in March 2025, Kentucky has seen 85 road deaths, significantly less than the 122 deaths during the same period in 2022. Seatbelt use is also more frequently recorded, although 36% of fatalities so far in 2025 saw the fatally injured occupant not wearing a seat belt.

Several cities in Tennessee have taken an unusual approach to tackling speeding, encouraging drivers to pay attention to speed limit signs by enforcing unusual limits on certain roads. For example, Opry Mills Drive in Nashville sports a 24 mph speed limit sign, while other towns feature a 31 mph or 19 mph speed limit. That hasn't stopped Tennessee from having one of the highest road fatality rates in the country, at 1.58 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles driven.

Two-thirds of fatal crashes in Tennessee involve occupants traveling in a car, pickup, or SUV, while 12% of crashes result in a motorcyclist losing their life. The state is also a relatively dangerous place for pedestrians, with 210 pedestrians killed in 2022, around 16% of the overall tally. A total of 50% of fatally injured vehicle occupants were not wearing a seat belt, despite high levels of seat belt use observed overall across the state.

A significant proportion of all road deaths in Montana were caused by drunk driving in 2022, with 40% of recorded deaths involving a driver over the legal limit. That's the joint second worst rate of any state in the country, level with South Carolina and Maryland. Only Hawaii's drunk driver fatality rate was higher, at 41%. Montana also had a high level of fatally injured vehicle occupants who weren't wearing a seat belt, with 61% of recorded deaths attributed to improperly restrained occupants.

Most of Montana's fatal crashes take place on rural roads, with 79% of accident sites considered rural and only a fifth considered urban. Among those total crashes, 57% were single-vehicle collisions.

In a 2020 letter regarding the state's Comprehensive Highway Safety Plan, Mike Tooley, the director of the Montana Department of Transportation, partly attributed the state's higher fatality rate to the remoteness of many of its roads. He said, "driving in one of our state's many rural areas (far from medical care) means the impacts from a crash could be more severe, as it may take hours before emergency crews can reach and transport crash victims to the appropriate level of trauma care."

Oklahoma is another state where the majority of fatal crashes occur on rural roads, although not to as large a degree as Montana. According to the report, 59% of fatal crashes in Oklahoma occurred in rural areas, while 41% occurred in urban areas. The Oklahoma Highway Safety Office manages the state's fatality reduction program, and its latest report placed the blame on young drivers for the higher road fatality rate. According to the report, teenage drivers are over-represented in the state's crash and death statistics. 

In particular, the report claimed Native American teens were far more likely to die in a road accident, noting that more needed to be done to engage with local communities on the best way to promote road safety. The report acknowledged that pedestrian fatalities were forecast to increase and highlighted the absence of effective fatality reduction programs at this time. 

It might have some remarkable stretches of road, including the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, the USA's longest bridge. However, Louisiana is also a potentially dangerous place for road users. A total of 60% of its recorded fatalities comprise occupants of cars, pickups, and SUVs, while drivers of large trucks make up only 2%. Worryingly for pedestrians, 20% of recorded fatalities are road users traveling on foot.

A higher percentage of crashes in Louisiana involve single-vehicle collisions than multi-vehicle — split roughly 57% to 43% — and alcohol is involved in 34% of those collisions. Around half of deaths involve occupants of a vehicle that weren't using a seat belt. Also, Louisiana's road maintenance is notoriously poor, with insufficient state funding available for repairs and extreme weather contributing to faster road degradation. Add in alcohol consumption and improper seat belt use and the result is one of the highest death rates per 100 million miles in the country.

Oregon is one of several states with some bizarre traffic laws, including one that limits the amount of time that occupants of a car can leave their door open if they're near traffic or pedestrian sidewalks. It's also unusual in that it had the highest level of seat belt observation in the country, with 97% of users complying with seat belt laws according to the report. Still, 31% of reported traffic deaths in the state in 2022 could be attributed to improper seat belt use.

The state also had a slightly higher rate of deaths on rural roads than urban roads, with 54% of fatalities occurring outside urban areas and 46% occurring within them. With 601 deaths recorded throughout the year and a population of roughly 4.2 million, Oregon recorded an average of 1.64 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles driven, enough to rank it among the country's ten worst road fatality rates.

Many of the most dangerous states for road users see higher levels of vehicle occupants who don't wear seatbelts properly, but Delaware bucks the trend. Across the state, 60% of vehicle occupant fatalities recorded in the report were correctly restrained in their vehicles, the highest rate in the country. However, this does not indicate a lower overall road fatality rate; Delaware experience 1.64 deaths per 100 million miles in 2022, the seventh worst in the nation. 

Delaware's fatal accidents are split 50/50 between rural and urban roads, and 24% of recorded fatalities involved a driver that was over the drunk driving limit. The latter figure is among the lowest of any state. In September 2024, the Delaware Office of Highway Safety announced a new program to improve road safety, particularly targeting speeders and those who drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs. As well as tougher enforcement, the program also aims to spread awareness through ads in bars, restaurants, and education centers.

Oregon isn't the only place with some strange driving laws. In Little Rock, Arkansas, it is prohibited to sound a vehicle horn at any place serving cold drinks or sandwiches after 9:00 p.m. While most road users will — knowingly or not — follow that law, Arkansas drivers seem less inclined to adhere to other road rules. The state has one of the lowest levels of observed seat belt use of anywhere in the country, with just 79% of vehicle occupants reportedly wearing one. It should be no surprise, then, to find out that 45% of recorded road fatalities involved vehicle occupants that were not properly restrained.

In other regards, Arkansas' fatality data is closely in line with other states that score poorly for road safety. Fatalities between single-vehicle and multi-vehicle collisions are split roughly half and half, with 44% of crashes occurring on urban roads and 56% on rural ones. Alcohol-related deaths are relatively low, with 25% of fatalities reported to have illegal levels of alcohol in their blood.

With an unusually high level of pedestrian deaths and almost two-thirds of fatal crashes occurring in urban areas, Arizona's cities fare particularly poorly for road safety. The state overall had a fatality rate in 2022 of 1.71 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles travelled, being only one of four states to average 1.7 or higher. In October 2024, the state's Department of Transportation published a plan aimed at reducing the number of deaths and serious injuries on the roads, with several key areas cited for improvement.

Those areas included road planning, with the state aiming to make future road projects more inclusive of pedestrians and cyclists. In particular, state highways were noted as a source of concern, with "location-specific projects" recommended to make it easier for road users on foot or bicycle to navigate larger, busier roads. The plan aims to reduce life-altering crashes by 20% by 2030 — a modest goal given that traffic fatalities have increased by 55% since 2013, according to the same report.

A 2024 report released by the research non-profit TRIP highlighted the dire state of West Virginia's roads and bridges, with 20% of rural bridges deemed to be in poor condition or structurally deficient. The IIHS report adds further insight, with 2022 data showing 66% of recorded fatalities in the state happened on rural roads, with 61% of fatal collisions involving only a single vehicle. Both reports paint a picture of hazardous driving conditions across the state, although neither claims that West Virginia's crumbling roads are the sole reason for its high fatality rate.

It seems that improper seat belt use is also a contributing factor in that rate, with 49% of recorded fatalities in the 2022 data confirmed to have been improperly restrained and just 33% confirmed to have been properly restrained. However, overall seatbelt usage across all drivers was observed at 93%, one of the highest figures in the country.

Across all road users, New Mexico sees relatively high levels of seat belt usage according to the report. Around 90% of drivers are observed as following seat belt rules correctly, and those that don't are overrepresented in fatality data. A reported 51% of fatally injured vehicle occupants were not correctly restrained, while 41% were properly restrained. In the remaining 8% of fatalities, restraint was unknown.

Drivers involved in fatal crashes in New Mexico also had high average levels of alcohol in their system, with 38% of those drivers reported to be over the legal limit. Most deaths involved the occupants of a car, pickup, or SUV, but 20% of recorded deaths were pedestrians. A total of 3% of deaths were recorded as occupants of large trucks, while bicyclist deaths remained very low, comprising only 1% of fatalities. Motorcyclists made up the remaining 12%.

Mississippi is home to the U.S. carmaking operations of Nissan and Toyota, with the latter assembling its best selling Corolla at a facility in Blue Springs. As well as producing plenty of cars, it also seems to produce plenty of dangerous drivers. In fact, the state has the highest number of annual road fatalities per 100,000 population, although it's in second place for fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles driven.

The state has the joint highest rate of car occupant deaths, alongside Indiana and North Carolina, and 56% of all recorded deaths are the result of single-vehicle collisions. It's difficult to give an estimate of how prevalent drunk driving is in the state, as Mississippi only reported alcohol results for 4% of its traffic fatalities. It also failed to report occupant restraint status for 17% of all fatalities, but overall level of seat belt use in the state is low, at a reported 79%. Just over two-thirds of fatal collisions happened on rural roads.

By a notable margin, the worst state in the country for road fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles travelled is South Carolina. A lack of seat belt use is common among fatally injured vehicle occupants, with 54% reportedly not being properly restrained at the time of the collision. The rate of drunk drivers involved in fatal collisions sat at 40% in the report, the joint second highest rate in the country.

Officials have launched a variety of campaigns and slogans aimed at increasing road safety over the years, including a "Highways or Dieways" campaign to remind drivers of highway safety and a "Sober or Slammer" initiative to target drunk driving. South Carolina's road fatalities decreased in 2023 and 2024, but the state's roads remain dangerous with 948 deaths in a state of roughly 5.3 million people — or some 17.89 deaths per 100,000 people.