Posted on 11/06/2015 8:40:37 AM PST by ckilmer
Car accidents killed 32,719 people in 2013, about 90 people each day. And there are some stretches of American road that prove much deadlier than others.
I used data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to examine where fatal traffic accidents are most likely to occur, and whether there are certain stretches of highway that seem to have a disproportionate number of collisions given their size. I pulled the 2,867 fatal accidents on major American interstates in 2013 into the map below.
The problem with calculating traffic accidents and what percentage of the population is affected is that many times it's not pulling from the same population pool, as people often travel and drive in areas where they don't necessarily reside. And while it is true that more fatal accidents happen off the main interstate roads, the interstate system is America's largest road network and experiences the largest volume of traffic as the US's primary artery for commuting and transporting goods.
Thus, for the purposes of this analysis, I grouped 315 interstates and 2,867 accidents by state and then divided the total number of fatal accidents by the total number of miles within a given state to calculate the number of accidents per ten miles for an interstate. Interstate stretches smaller than 10 miles were excluded. Below is a list of the top 10 interstates for fatal accidents per mile in 2013.
Stretching a little under 75 miles in Georgia, I-285 had 26 fatal accidents in 2013, while the state of Georgia reported 1,085 fatal accidents in total, making it the seventh worst state for fatal accidents.
Only a little over 20 miles in length, the I-710 in California accounted for seven fatal accidents, whereas the state of California reported 2,772 in 2013, making it the second worst state for fatal accidents.
Oklahoma is the 19th worst state for fatal accidents, with 621 recorded in 2013. I-44 actually saw the most fatal accidents of any road in Oklahoma, with 30 reported accidents, but has an overall lower likelihood of fatality, as I-44 stretches for a little more than 400 miles.
On the whole, Delaware ranks pretty low for fatal accidents, at 45th. In 2013, the state only saw 94 fatal accidents. However, the I-495 only clocks in at a little under 15 miles, making it one of Delaware's most trafficked — and deadliest — roads.
Tennessee is the ninth worst state for fatal accidents, with 911 reported in 2013. I-40 actually saw the most fatal accidents of any road in Tennessee, with 46 reported accidents, but has an overall lower likelihood of fatality, as I-40 spans almost 550 miles.
Florida is the third worst state for fatal accidents, with 2,228 total accidents reported in 2013. I-95 in Florida saw the largest number of fatal accidents for any interstate in 2013, at 83 accidents.
As a state, Texas had both the largest number of fatal accidents in 2013, at 3,044, and the largest number of drunk driving accidents, with 913 recorded incidents. Eight of the 15 fatal accidents on the I-410 involved a drunk driver.
Shorter than the I-410 by roughly 20 miles, the I-610 recorded four fewer fatal accidents than the I-410 and significantly fewer drunk driving accidents. Of the 11 accidents, only four involved a drunk driver.
Of the 10 interstates with the largest number of fatal accidents per mile, I-4 in Florida covers the longest distance, at a little more than 150 miles.
Ranked 10th, with a fatality rate of 2.1 accidents per 10 miles, I-215 reported 14 accidents in 2013. I-5 actually saw the most fatal accidents of any road in California with 72 accidents reported, but has an overall lower likelihood of fatality, as I-5 spans more than 1,000 miles.
Digging into the data, I started to find trends: Certain states tend to have much deadlier highways, and different sections of the exact same interstate can differ greatly in their deadliness.
Texas, California, and Florida all have sections of two of the nation's deadliest interstates. The I-710 in Los Angeles, California, was the second deadliest interstate (after the I-285 in Atlanta, Georgia), with roughly three fatal accidents every 10 miles in 2013. The I-215 in San Bernardino, California, ranked 10th, with a 2.1 fatal accident rate.
Of the 315 interstates examined, California had the largest number of interstates with fatal accidents — 20 in all, 12 of which ranked in the top 50 deadliest interstates. While New York and Illinois had the second highest number of interstates with fatal accidents at 18 and 17, respectively, interstates in Illinois and New York were far less deadly than those in California. Not one interstate in New York made the top 50, and only two interstates in Illinois made the cut.
Texas, however, witnessed the greatest number of fatal accidents along any interstate system in 2013, 340 in total. California, with its more expansive road network, recorded 306 accidents; Florida, with only six interstates, totaled 229 accidents. Taken together, accidents in Texas, California, and Florida made up a little more than 30 percent of all fatal accidents along interstate systems.
Interstate 240, with sections in Tennessee, Oklahoma, and North Carolina, appears twice on the list of the nation's deadliest interstates. The Oklahoma stretch is ranked third, with six fatal accidents and a 2.9 accident rate, and the Tennessee stretch is ranked fifth, with 10 accidents and a 2.6 accident rate. The North Carolina stretch is ranked 78th and is relatively safe, with only one recorded accident in 2013.
While Interstate 95 was not one of the deadliest highways, it had the most expansive reach, touching 14 states, and had the greatest number of fatal accidents — 83 — along its stretch in Florida. But because the I-95 runs for more than 400 miles in Florida, it only ranked as the 15th deadliest highway, with an accident rate of 1.9.
Interstate 81 from New York to Tennessee is a big killer too.
too bad no one can go count the number of illegal involved fatalities there are.
I would be that considering 32,719 people were killed in 2013— illegals were involved in fully 1/4 of those deaths —since that percentage also tracks the number of illegals in federal state and local prisons.
Scary
Your first map of Atlanta: Every time I have driven on the outer ring, I’m startled by the excess speed of all drivers. Eighty, ninety miles per hour. It’s huge.
Many of these listed are not “interstates”
The 710 AKA Long Beach Freeway, is outright scary.
It is a truck freight train. Cars are interlopers.
The LB / LA port is the largest on the west coast.
Your retail / on-line shopping supply chain passes through the 710 freeway.
Got that right. 285 in Atlanta. “Woohoo! If it goes in a circle, I might just be a future NASCAR driver.” Craziness!
True, most of the ones listed are bypasses or commuter loops for their local cities. True interstate highways are designated with only one or two numbers.
it may be that the killer is the truck— auto accidents.
sounds like the big killers are the semi’s
And all three are “warm weather” states.
Settled science says warm weather causes folks to have more accidents.
You need to move to Montana to save your life!
They probably don’t track the illegals - but they do smokers and seatbelt violators.
Have to agree on Tennessee.
Have been to Nashville several times.
There are 14 car pile-ups everywhere you go in that town.
Columbus, Ohio should be on the list too. The eight-lane cuts you see on I-270 in morning rush are like something out of a bad video game.
they’re also the three most populous states along with three of the top four largest states.
more people ... more cars ... more miles of highway ... more accidents.
not exactly a shocker.
change the stats to per capita system and weight the roads by percentage of total highways, then you’d start to see the real information. until then, largest states will always be on top.
I-710 (aka 'The Long Beach Freeway') is the main route for the container trucks from LB harbor to the RR yards at Bandini Blvd, in city of Commerce. I wonder how many of those fatalities involved trucks, many (most?) of which are driven by either illegals or recent immigrants (Seiks)
We need more light rail.
Only $100 million per mile.
The 710 in California is loaded with big rigs serving the Port of Long Beach. A really unpleasant freeway and I’m not surprised it’s one of the deadliest.
Rank your area`s 10 deadliest roads:
Martinez, CA NE thru Brentwood is “Blood Alley”; cars run into the enbankments and tip over for no apparent reason, apparently haunted. This did not happen until in the 70-80`s when they straightened the road out, probably digging over an Indian burial ground in the process.
East of San Francisco is Niles Canyon Rd. which is haunted. Strange accidents occur there as a woman in white will suddenly appear in your back seat. One of my salesman died there inexplicably when his car crashed head-on into a tree.
He always talked about seeing a woman in a white flowing transparent gown walking at night along the road, then disappearing; many crashes there.
Here in NY we have ‘Deadman`s Curve’ which after 75 years of many deaths was finally closed off.
Also there is another curve by the lake 9N where cars fly off into the lake fast while cruising at low speeds.
Another one is coming down the mountain where trucks always lose their brakes. They also straightened this road out in 1990`s, digging thru an old Indian path next to an ancient black lead warpaint site.
Are these the interstates that are closest to gun stores?
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