There could be other factors. For instance, people who drive in urban areas generally drive a lot more miles each year: They simply have more driving experience than rural drivers, and are better able to handle the driving task.
Although the example of single-car accidents refers to isolated roads, two-car accidents may be a factor as well: Freeways don't have intersections. Rural highways (either old U.S. highways or state highways) often have intersections where vehicles must pull into, rather than merge with, high speed traffic.
As the article mentions, safer roadway features must be a factor. In addition to the lack of a center divider, as you mentioned, and the fact of intersections, many rural highways have just two lanes, unimproved shoulders, and curves with limited sight-lines. That is simply the nature of rural areas: There's not much reason to build freeways everywhere.
People have thought me crazy for riding a motorcycle on Houston freeways, but I tell them it's a lot less scary than riding on the farm-to-market roads or on city streets, where there are potential collisions everywhere.
Where you live greatly impacts the likelihood of getting into a fatal car collision.
According to a new study, the safest places to drive in the United States aren’t empty rural roads in America’s heartland — in fact, it’s Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut and Illinois.
The most dangerous? Wyoming, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Arkansas.
The study is based on federal data of traffic fatalities per 100,000 population and per 100 million miles driven.
The big lesson: urban roads are safer than rural ones, in some places by a factor of two.
The reason? Urban areas usually have roads with lower speed limits and safer roadway features (divided lanes, guardrails, fast access to emergency medical care, etc.)
Most rural fatalities happen not by colliding with another vehicle, but when the original car leaves the road and crashes into trees or other obstructions.
To be sure, the “safest” states are also some of the ones with the most fatalities overall. (And naturally, these statistics don’t take into consideration less-than-fatal collisions, which I’m willing to bet are much, much higher in dense areas.) But per capita, you’re more likely to die in a car crash in a rural area than in one in a city.
The results have been met with some degree of criticism.
Many traffic safety groups such as the Governors Highway Safety Association argue that such comparisons don’t accurately reflect how safe a state’s roads are. A better measure, they say, is whether states have enacted proven safety enhancements such as motorcycle helmet laws and primary seat belt laws, which allow police to stop motorists solely for being unbuckled.
Is the difference a matter of measurement, or an inevitable result of the way the world works? After all, we can’t have everyone going 25 miles per hour across the plains states.
Still, the study shows that the architects and engineers who design our roadways, and the elected officials who regulate them, play a large part in their inherent safety.
The rates of each state per 100,000 population, arranged from safest to most dangerous, below:
- District of Columbia: 4.8
- Massachusetts: 5.1
- New York: 5.9
- Connecticut: 6.3
- New Jersey: 6.7
- Illinois: 7.1
- Washington: 7.4
- Rhode Island: 7.9
- Minnesota: 8.0
- California: 8.3
- New Hampshire: 8.3
- Hawaii: 8.4
- Ohio: 8.8
- Utah: 8.8
- Michigan: 8.7
- Alaska: 9.2
- Nevada: 9.2
- Colorado: 9.3
- Maryland: 9.6
- Virginia: 9.6
- Oregon: 9.8
- Wisconsin: 9.9
- Pennsylvania: 10.0
- Indiana: 10.8
- USA average: 11.0
- Vermont: 11.9
- Maine: 12.1
- Arizona: 12.2
- Iowa: 12.4
- Nebraska: 12.4
- Texas: 12.4
- Delaware: 13.1
- Georgia: 13.1
- Kansas: 13.7
- Florida: 13.8
- North Carolina: 14.0
- Idaho: 14.6
- Missouri: 14.7
- Tennessee: 15.7
- South Dakota: 16.1
- Alabama: 18.0
- New Mexico: 18.0
- Kentucky: 18.3
- Louisiana: 18.3
- South Carolina: 19.6
- West Virginia: 19.6
- Oklahoma: 20.0
- Arkansas 20.3
- North Dakota: 21.6
- Montana: 22.7
- Mississippi: 23.7
- Wyoming: 24.6
Photo: MoBikeFed/Flickr
