Road fatalities per 100,000 population in major US States, Australian States and Canadian Provinces
Taken from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBPkI3CCY8o
I understand this is largely due to Americans wanting to get drunk like everyone else but also having to drive everywhere.
And gigantic motor vehicles.
And terrible roads and/or regulations? I can't help but notice the worst offenders are conservative areas and those usually are neglectful.
There are so many dumb regulations and circumstances that functionally push people to giant vehicles.
For instance: I replaced my 2016 VW golf base model with an electric F150 this year for a multitude of reasons. I got a refund from insurance (with the same coverage). None of this makes sense except that I'm less likely to be injured by other motorists in my 3.5ton truck. I found this depressing.
Thought it would be interesting to compare with EU, they published an article in 2023 (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?oldid=630784) with the following data. This graph uses a number per 1 million inhabitants so divide by 10 to compare it.
As far as I know Finland has the world's strictest driving licence, so I'm actually surprised to see it posting worse statistics than Sweden here.
Sweden went insane with road security in the nineties (nollvisionen?) so maybe that's why.
Sweden is as expected. 200-something fatalities for 10 million people. Norway stands out😃
It got me thinking about definitions, though. For Sweden every death during transportation is counted (including busses, heavy trucks and single accidents with a bike), while the definition my 2 minute googling found for Canada said deaths resulting from accidents involving automobiles.
Need to factor in terrain and weather conditions too.
The way this chart is formatted is making me more angry than it should lol
How is norway so low?? We have mostly trash roads with a few noteable exceptions. Cliff on one side, river or fjord on the other. No shoulder worth mentioning unlike sweeden, that often have half a lane on either side of the road.
Maybe scarier roads make you drive slower?
driving requirements for license are vastly different among european countries, but also state of the cars, more wealthy nations replace older cars more quickly, so countries like Bulgaria and Romania often sit on their cars for sometimes generations. Add to that the constant honking and cutting off people, temperament of the populus
Victoria is that low cos they don’t fuck around when it comes to driving fines. The speed limit means limit, and they’re cracking down hard on drivers using phones.
Victorians are some of the worst/dangerous drivers I've seen, but I'm not in Victoria.
I have seen worse but yeah, we have more than our fair share of dickheads on the road.
Yeah the only people worse at driving are Belgiuns. I say this with certainty having never been to Belgium and in direct conflict with the source presented to me. I simply know it to be true as an empath.
I mean,Australia has way less snow than the US, that definitely has to account for a chunk of the difference in our numbers.
Is this specifically relating to the difference between Victoria and Mississippi?
from existing in a car in the US on a few occasions and living in australia i’d wager a HUGE amount of the difference is attitude… holy SHIT do yall speed like crazy! 15-20mph over the limit just seems to be standard… 15kph over the limit here in aus you literally watch them pass every other car and call them a dickhead - and they’ll almost certainly get a speeding fine
But Canada has way more snow than the U.S., so that doesn't seem to be a major factor.
Mississippi gets negligible amounts of snowfall and it rarely sticks.
I remember reading years back that Mississippi is the only state where it's legal for the driver to drink while driving (as long as they keep it below 0.08). Multiple defenders on Reddit said its safe because its still below the legal limit.
Couldnt be related, could it? Nahhh
https://dui.drivinglaws.org/resources/can-a-passenger-drink-alcohol.htm
I don't know much about Mississippi, but I know that in neighboring Louisiana, there are drive-through daiquiri places.
the fine print of the law says that the open container law is not applicable to containers with frozen alcoholic beverage where the lid is intact and no straw is protruding through the lid.
In most cases, daiquiris adhere to the “tape rule.” Most daiquiri shops will put a piece of tape over the straw hold on the lid. If this tape is removed or broken then the drink is considered an open container.
So a piece of tape counts as a "seal." They're not even trying.
Ah yes, a piece of tape. Tape can definitely not be lifted and replaced, right?
I took a quick looks and seems like Mississippi has many drive through daiquiris bars also.
https://m.yelp.com/search?cflt=drivethrubars&find_loc=Gulfport%2C+MS
Wait, are you saying BAC while driving must be 0.00 in some parts of the States, or am I misunderstanding? It's 0.05 in most (all?) parts of Australia (except if you're in a restricted licence category). It's not encouraged, but it's legal.
Figured you guys would have more permissive laws than we do.
No I'm saying you're not allowed to be drinking alcohol while you drive. Which you are in Mississippi.
USA freedom warriors (tm) on Reddit say 'that's fine because they still have to be under the legal limit'. Unable to fathom that the idea of normalizing drinking alcohol while you drive encourages irresponsible behaviour amongst other negatives, beyond just staying under the BAC limit.
21 Mississippi, 22 Mississippi...
America is more in the middle of the road when you look at the whole globe, and don’t just select a few counties with lower death rates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate
Africa is currently the reigning champ for vehicle related deaths.
Yes, but that does not make it any better, since the US should be compared to other Western developed countries. That is like people saying that the number of gun deaths in the US isn't that bad because they are worse in Ukraine or Syria, you know, active war zones.
I think it’s fair to compare like with like. Many African countries have poor infrastructure, inadequate enforcement of traffic laws, rapid urbanization, unsafe vehicles, and limited emergency medical services. Its easy for a Western country to look better compared to that, but is it a fair comparison?
The Netherlands has 4.19
The Netherlands is close in size to Maryland, and close in the number of inhabitants as New York. Also half of the traffic is cars and half is bicycles. It's pretty insane how bad Mississippi is.
I tried looking into why Mississippi was so far worse. Mostly just finding people self report texting and driving more there, infrastructure is shitty, enforcement is shitty, DUIs are high they recently just upped the civil fine of texting while driving from $25 to $100.
For fun I looked to see what Mississippi would be like if it was its own country, and do to GDP it was compared to Morocco and Kenya.
Car Deaths per 100,000
Mississippi: 26 Morocco: 17.29 Kenya: 28
Kenya is 4x as dense as Mississippi is though, so still hard to say Mississippi is safer than Kenya. It's just numbers
yes but whole africa is developing nations with ultra bad infrastructure like roads and intersections. You should be comparing USA to peering nations, like western europe or countries of the commonwealth. Unless you admit that USA is also third world shit hole
Saudi Arabia, WTF?
getting a drivers license in mississippi is basically show up to the DMV, suck a cock and drive home or what?
Mississippi has drive-through combo shops: liquor store / DMV / KFC.
Saves time on your way to and home from church.
Took a closer look to see if I was surprised by any correlation about poverty, and browsed away with the belief that the south is still a shithole... which might still correlate with poverty. I think kansas/oregon is the first entry that wouldn't be 'south.'
Drinkin' beers an' drivin' yer trukk is a highly traditional pastime in the US deep south. Typically done in the middle of the night, in my experience, for the maximum probability of contacting the local wildlife or making friends at high speed with a tree.
You can always count on Mississippi! I'm surprised Texas isn't higher, we drive like maniacs.
New Jersey is too low. Serious doubts about the validity of this table.
Probably not. The state has been implementing Vision Zero as a statewide program along with several cities.
The two major highways have lower than average accidents due to design.
One of the state's signature traffic configurations, the Jersey Jughandle, eliminates left turn movements on older highways, a major source of accidents.
It's comparing against total population, not driving population, so any amount of mass transit will greatly reduce this number
Jersey is best state, 100%.
I'd like to see the % of trucks vs cars for each location.
Where are Idaho, Wyoming and Montana?
There are only 36 states represented here by my count. It says "major" states, whatever that means. But 14 in total are missing either because of their smaller populations, or because their fatality rate is low enough that they would fall off the right hand side of the chart and thus wouldn't fit the "America Drivers Bad" narrative quietly being implied, here.
Edit: I looked up the numbers for my state in the same year (and no, I'm not telling the public which one). We would be at 1.2 on this chart if my math is correct, which is well below even the shortest bar for Victoria, there.
I decided to look and found that this metric is almost always measured by vehicle distance travelled rather than by population. Basically the graph OP shared is useless and meant to support a narrative, as you stated.
While I'd prefer to see every state and province represented, I imagine only metro areas matter here anyway. The dangers of the road are quite different when your largest city has a sliver of density compared to the rest, though by that token, density is probably a factor that even large states should account for (which would probably put NYC very low on the list lol)
Not surprised by SC, as a Canadian I had one accident in 40 years of driving, it was in SC, caused by a 17yo girl driving an old suburban or something.
The south is killing it!
How the heck are Victorians down the bottom? Is it just the sheer size of our population keeping that number in check...?
If you can survive hook turns you can survive anything.
Also less country for country driving
There's some truth to that (wonder what percentage of fatalities are hook turn related...?), though most of my "if you can survive" experiences have been with drivers overtaking on the shoulder, overtaking in the right hand turn queue and then making a dangerous turn, losing control of their speeding vehicle in the Burnley Tunnel or on the West Gate Bridge, or deciding that stopping for red lights and/or pedestrians (crossing legally) is optional.
Obviously anecdotal, with a sample size of just one, but these are experiences I've had as a driver, passenger, pedestrian, or onlooker from a shop/restaurant/inside a tram. Didn't happen anywhere near as frequently when I lived in Sydney or Brisbane.
I'm guessing gun violence is much the same.
SOUTH CAROLINA #2!!!! 🥳🥳🎉🎊🎉🎉🎊🍻🥳🎉🎉🪅
It's around 2.5 per 100 000 in Norway.
. . . Huh. Here in Vic every year we get targeted with so many ads being like 'worse year ever for road deaths, drive safe, etc'
I assume this includes pedestrians and cyclist deaths? It's by population rather than by "car" or "km driven" but I'd like to see a per county breakdown.
The thing that surprised me most after moving to Oregon was how bad the drivers were. I've lived in many states across the South, the Midwest, and West Coast and I've never encountered drivers so consistently vindictive, entitled and reckless as the drivers in Oregon.
Is it the issue of safety standards?
I'm guessing there is some correlation to total miles(/km) driven. Not all of it, but some. If people in one location drive drastically less distance annually, I'd expect their numbers to show drastically lower on the chart, as well.
I am not convinced with Australia and Canada being much better? It would make sense if you were comparing to Europe.
USA #1! 🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸
You gotta enforce traffic laws in order to maintain safety.
Also*, where is Maine?
The hell is a "major state"
Whatever comes before a lieutenant state?
The fact that California, a state with THIRTEEN TIMES MORE PEOPLE than Mississippi, has less than half the number of traffic fatalities is mind blowing. Mississippi is just 30% of the landmass that California represents, and yet it gets more than double the amount of traffic fatalities.
Looking at the left side of the graph, the trend is easily recognizable. Drunk angry and repressed, poverty stricken republicans will drive drunk like it's the right to bear arms. The further right you go, the more democratic the state.
Clearly fake as it doesn't show a state that's better the non Americans. In big America, there are clearly more states!
In fairness Australia has a low population density, and is not so mountainous, and we have very little snow et cetera.
That said I guess we do have hazards like kangaroos, and a larger road network to maintain (per capita).
Also depending on. When these stats are from they might pre-date the influx of shitty over-sized little-mans American cars. Thats sure to increase the rates of fatalities.
Wait what?? British Columbia is less than Alberta? There are single lanes in dangerous areas in comparison to Alberta.
How you know this is good data
Oh come on. I don’t think there’s another country on the planet as car-dependent as the US. We have more cars, we drive far, far more than these countries, so of course there will be more deaths. Try it per person/mile driven and I bet the numbers shift quite a bit and it won’t be so dramatic, but the US will still come out “ahead.” On average I’d also bet the US has far higher average travel speed as well generating a higher possibility of fatal accidents.
Edit: Here. Sort by billion km driven. US is #8.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate
Still high, but in context the OP doesn’t offer.
USA is definitely the most car-brained nation, but I don't think that miles-travelled alone stacks up when comparing states.
As an example for 2022 data from FHWA it shows that Mississippians drove 17,699 miles average, while Minnesotans drove more, at 17,887 miles. Yet Mississippi has more than triple the road fatalities.
Even if you take Mississippi as an outlier, many other states are well over double Minnesota, with similar miles-driven: South Carolina, New Mexico, Oklahoma.
Canada and Australia, the only other countries in the OP, are both below the US.
As for speed, at least where I am in Canada, they don't even bother enforcing the limit until you're at least 20% over it. And Germany, famous for its highway without a speed limit, is still lower than all three countries listed.
Whatever is going on in the US to cause a higher amount of car fatalities isn't just distance driven or speed.
You ignored the entire point of the post. Your anecdote about enforcement could be apply to any of the countries listed. And the idea that the Autobahn is some kind of speed free-for-all needs to die. It’s highly regulated and restricted. I’ve driven it well over 100mph. Again, the number of Germans driving and the miles they drive vs that of the US is a huge difference.
Oh come on. I don’t think there’s another country on the planet as car-dependent as the US.
Well, that in and of itself is something worthy of criticism. One significant side effect of being so car-dependent is that effectively requires us to have low standards when it comes to obtaining and keeping a license.
That's part of the problem.
„Yeah, it's unfair to count us that high in death by alcohol. You should divide it by litre of alcohol drank.“ - said no-one ever, with good reason.
It's not hard to keep accidents down when only one person drives on the road at a time.
Mississippi Population: 2.9 mil
Victoria, Australia Population: 7 mil
Your math ain't mathin'
Mississippi is always the worst of any statistic
A State so pathetic the ones around it brag
Mississippi is the only state that doesn't specifically prohibit drinking and driving (as long as you stay below the 0.08% BAC)