Vermont had the lowest rate of fatal driving crashes during the holidays from 2015 through 2019, according to a new study.
Despite the alcohol, the short days and the wintry road conditions, the holidays are not the most dangerous time to drive nationwide.
“It’s actually the summertime because there’s simply more people on the road,” said Christian Worstell, the study’s author. “You’re taking trips to the beach. You’re going camping. You’re going to concerts. You’re just more active in the summertime. So there’s actually more accidents in the spring and summer than there are in the winter.”
The study, conducted by helpadvisor.com, a site that offers health insurance advice, analyzed data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
It looked at motor vehicle crashes Dec. 24-26 and Dec. 31-Jan. 2 for 2015 to 2019, the most recent year for which data is available.
Vermont had a total of one fatal crash over those five years of holidays and a deadly crash rate of 0.18 per 100,000 drivers, the lowest per capita rate of all 50 states.
The fatal crash rate was arrived at by dividing the number of fatal crashes by the number of licensed drivers in a state.
Mississippi had the highest fatal crash rate.
Texas had the highest number of total fatal crashes at 298.
The study found that nationally, the fatal crash rate around Christmas declined by 17% over the five years studied, while the rate around the new year increased by 13%. Over the five-year period, the rate of fatal crashes was about the same around each holiday nationwide.
Looking at each state, though, there were wide differences in when crashes occurred. For example, two-thirds of fatal crashes in Maryland and Delaware occurred around Christmas, while in Wisconsin, nearly two-thirds of fatal crashes occurred around the new year.
Vermont’s lone fatal crash occurred around the new year.
The study also found that 33% of fatal crashes nationwide involved impaired driving, using each state’s legal limit for alcohol. Vermont had the highest rate of fatal crashes involving alcohol-impaired driving, 100%, but that is only because Vermont’s lone fatal crash involved drunken driving. Connecticut had the highest rate after that, 50%.
The study raises the question of whether the number of unlicensed drivers in a state raises or lowers how many fatal driving crashes it has but does not answer that question.
