Accidents on the road account for an alarming number of fatalities every year. The United States is a driving nation, and with motorists come the chance for collisions.
In the big move toward self-driving vehicles, one of the primary arguments is that computers are much less likely to cause accidents. Once the “human element” is removed from the equation, we remove the possibility for drowsiness, distraction, and other deterrents to motor safety.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) releases numbers for auto-related deaths every year; they are a non-profit institution working to reduce the number of road fatalities. Their full statistics have just arrived for the calendar year 2019, and there are some intriguing details as we look state-by-state.
Much as Cincinnati dog bite attorneys study the numbers of canine-related injuries in Hamilton County every year, lawyers who deal with car accidents pay close attention to these statistics.
Fatalities per capita, state by state
Perhaps not surprising, some of the states with the lowest populations had some of the highest numbers in deaths per capita. Wyoming had the highest by far, at 25.4 people out of every 100,000 dying in car accidents in 2019. Given that state’s total population of under 600,000, that is a considerable figure. Only two other states were over 20 per 100,000, and those were Mississippi at 21.6 people per 100,000 and New Mexico at 20.2. Rounding out the top five were South Carolina (19.4) and sparsely-populated Montana (17.2).
Given those long stretches of largely empty interstates in Wyoming, Montana, and New Mexico, might the geography contribute to the higher mortality rates? Might open stretches of road lead to higher speeds of travel, and therefore more serious collisions?
At the other end of the spectrum, with the lowest per-capita death rates, are areas where you might expect there to be plenty of traffic and gridlock. District of Columbia (3.3), New York (4.8), Massachusetts (4.8), and Rhode Island (5.4). Ohio was closer to that end of things, with a 9.9.
Estimated Level of Blood Alcohol
This statistic gets complication. In some states, when a driver is deceased at the crash scene, they tend to test that driver’s level of blood alcohol (Hawaii 94% of the time, West Virginia 88% of the time, Oklahoma 89% of the time). In other states, not so much (Wyoming only 30% of the time, Indiana 34% of the time). Here in Ohio, our highway patrol officers check the BAC levels 83% of the time in auto fatalities.
That said, it is still possible to estimate how many of these drivers had a BAC at or over 0.08%, which is the legal limit. In Ohio, 181 of the drivers who died in collisions were at or above the legal blood alcohol limit. That is 30% of the deceased drivers.
What about other states? Some of the lowest percentages – i.e. the fewest drivers who had been drinking – were in Utah (14%), West Virginia (14%), and Kentucky (21%). Among the highest? Montana (37%), Washington state (37%), Rhode Island (39%), and North Dakota (41%).
What Other Statistics are Included?
If you would like to peruse, some of the other figures captured include:
- Vehicle crash deaths by land use (Urban, Rural, or Unknown)
- Rates of seat belt use
- Deaths by crash type (single-vehicle vs. multiple-vehicle)
- Deaths by road user type (car, SUV or pickup, truck, motorcycle, bicycle, or pedestrian)