From Law Firm of Jeremy Rosenthal
New findings have revealed America's most dangerous roads, according to fatal accident rates.
Manatee County's section of U.S. Highway 41 records a shocking 2.32 fatal crashes per mile, making it the eighth-deadliest road in America, according to a new analysis of NHTSA crash data.
Half of the nation's ten most dangerous roads were revealed to be state highways. City streets accounted for three deadly entries while U.S. highways filled the final two spots in the ten most dangerous roadways.
Denver accident attorneys at the Law Firm of Jeremy Rosenthal examined National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data over a five-year period, identifying the deadliest roads across the country, and the most dangerous in every state. This was determined by identifying the roads with the highest number of fatal traffic accidents per mile.
The Philadelphia County section of Route 611, at just 6.29 miles long, suffered 25 fatal crashes during the five years analyzed. The short stretch averaged nearly 3.97 fatalities per mile, revealing that the Pennsylvania roadway has the highest fatality rate in America.
U.S. Highway 23 in Georgia's DeKalb County claimed second spot with 2.88 fatal collisions per mile. The highway section proved lethal despite measuring just 5.56 miles in the county, with 16 crashes killing 17 people.
Los Angeles County's South Central Avenue came third with 2.67 fatal crashes for each mile of road. The California route stretches slightly longer at 10.49 miles through LA County but experienced a concerning 28 fatal crashes with the same number of fatalities.
Along just 5.67 miles of State Highway 191 located in Ector County, Texas, there was a rate of 2.65 fatal crashes per mile between 2018-2022, with 17 total fatalities recorded. This places the highway fourth on the list of America's deadliest roads.
California's road network takes yet another spot in the top five, with State Route 1's 12.69 miles spanning Los Angeles County suffering 32 fatal crashes during the period considered, equating to a rate of 2.52 collisions per mile.
America's 10 deadliest roads ranked by crashes per mile
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South Central Connecticut
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"These figures highlight stark contrasts in road safety across America. Urban and rural areas show completely different risk patterns with city roads recording much higher crash rates per mile. Most people think interstates are the biggest danger, but our data shows state highways and local streets often carry far greater risks.
"The high pedestrian death toll in urban areas points to serious road design problems. Drivers must be extra vigilant on these known danger routes, especially where pedestrian traffic is common."
Regional patterns emerged clearly in the data, with north-eastern and southern states showing higher concentrations of deadly roads. Among the top 20 most dangerous road segments nationwide, Tennessee took three spots, and together with Georgia, Florida, and Texas, the southern states accounted for nine of the deadliest roads, suggesting regional factors heavily influence road safety.
This table shows the most dangerous road in each of the 50 states ranked by crashes per mile:
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South Central Connecticut
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Methodology: Fatal vehicle crash data was sourced from the NHTSA's FARS dataset for the years 2018 to 2022. The 182,347 total fatal crashes were geocoded to determine the state and county each accident occurred. Shapefiles from the U.S. Census describing 18 million roads across 3,144 counties were used to determine the closest road to each crash.
The length of each road was determined by summing the total distance between sequential coordinates within the shapefiles. For each road, the number of crashes, fatalities, vehicles involved, and pedestrians involved were calculated and normalized per mile of road length to ensure a fair comparison between roads of differing lengths.
Roads were then ranked by their number of crashes per mile both nationwide, within their state, and within their county.
