Montana Has The Deadliest Roads In Country - The Safest? MASSACHUWHAT?

WASHINGTON --Montana's highways are the deadliest. Forty-two percent of West Virginia's roads are too narrow. Some of the worst traffic is in California, Minnesota, New Jersey and North Carolina.

A study released Thursday found that traffic congestion and highway fatalities have increased slightly even as road conditions have improved in recent years. The findings are based on data from 1984 through 2005.

North Dakota and South Carolina roads rated highest in the overall rankings; New Jersey's were the lowest.

The state-by-state evaluation was conducted by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and financed by the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank based in Los Angeles.

<snip>

Montana had the deadliest roads, with 2.3 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. Massachusetts roads were the safest, with a death rate of 0.8.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/06/28/study_ranks_states_by_road_condition/

Now what about Delaware?

:hide:

:rofl::rofl:

Hey! What about Bectel's tunnel of doom?!?!

Mass and RI have the worst drivers evAH!

with alcohol in the mix too

My folks like out in the Shennandoah Valley and the first year at that high school they lost something like 16 kids to car crashes. All do to flying down the country roads LATE AT NIGHT ;-)

Kindof hard to die traveling at 2mph.

The idiot drivers are the problem.

In Arizona's case, they have some of the most lax licensing requirements in the country - and I've heard they allow more mistakes and wrong answers than any other state.

I got my license renewed here in AZ, and it doesn't expire until I'm 65, in 2048. Sixty-Five. I guess the DMV figures I'll still look like I'm 20 at that point.

In Connecticut, if I forgot to put the parking brake on after I parked, game over: no license.

for each stupid ass thing they expected you would be doing and how many points you could rack up before they took back the license. A-MAZING.

My pal in Green Valley loves the bumper sticker commonly seen there:
Helen Keller is alive & driving in Green Valley

That being said, I have to deal with the situation in MT again now. Lots of really tired truckers on lonely roads. People from small populations trying to deal with urban traffic which the roads can't handle safely. New urban populations not used to snow/ice/buffalo. Then, there's the trouble that ensues when the deer and the antelope play...

Hunting season is especially interesting. I just try to stay indoors. Too much Bud and too little common sense exhibited by the tourist-hunters. It isn't pretty.

Yep. My wife still has her AZ license even though we have moved back to Colorado.

(and suspend the license if you don't comply)

Forces you, when youre right about that age, to retake the tests and see if you are still ok to drive. And we dont have the madness of goin and renewing every however often.

Only drawback is the weird ass looks you get going into bars in other states, instantly looks fake..

:rofl: :rofl:

I'm sure their safety ranks have dropped with Teen Midlo behind the wheel.
:D
(I'm sorry I just can't resist)

She's a very good driver. :hide:

I know...I used to drive a tour trolley. And yes, I was crazier than most.

1) Very few people live in Montana...there are, at present, ten cities in the United States (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas and San Jose) that have higher populations than the entire state of Montana.

2) I'm bettin' that about half the vehicle traffic in Montana is long-haul truck traffic. Semis don't get into minor accidents, especially with a car on the receiving end.

3) Interstate 90 through Montana is a unique piece of road, with respect to the exits. On most interstates, an exit is this big complex thing with a bridge running across the roadbed and lots of signage. On Montana's hunk of I-90, which is lined with farms, if you want to use the freeway as a farm access road you petition the state, they come out and install one sign, and you borrow a D-6 Cat (assuming you don't have one of your own) to build a little road leading off the hardball. Presto: "farm access" exit, one each, dirt in color. Combine this with...

4) In the middle of the state, where the farms are, there ain't a hell of a lot of cops. There IS, OTOH, about three hundred miles of laser-straight--but NOT laser-flat--roadbed. The old speed limit was "reasonable and prudent" which was governmentese for "don't kill yourself." Too many people read this as "what the car will do." Add to that all the dump trucks full of grain on the public roads, and think: if you come over a hill doing 130 or so and you see a dump truck toolin' along at about 25 in your lane, if you don't react immediately you are going to die...and the kid driving the dump truck probably isn't going to suffer more than moderate bruising.

Combine a relatively very low number of vehicle-miles driven with unbelievable speed differentials and the kind of accidents people don't walk away from, and Montana, which is actually a very safe state to drive in because the vehicle density is so low and the roads are good, will rack up a very bad-looking statistic. Massachusetts' roads are so tightly packed you can't get a playing card between two cars' bumpers, which does two things for them--runs up the vehicle-mile numbers, and keeps speed differentials low enough it's hard to get enough force together to kill someone in the crash.

Which means in a couple of years I can get to work in 9 minutes instead of 10 minutes.


NJ road conditions and traffic suck. Too narrow, feeder roads usually single lane, state highways never kept up with growth. And Bush hates us, so we got screwed on some highway funding last few years. Something about godless heathens.