NATIONAL RANKING

The Safest US Counties by Road-Fatality Rate

Counties with the lowest 2023 road-death rate per 100,000 residents, among counties of at least 50,000 people. Rows built on 1 to 3 deaths are marked Limited data.

Ozaukee, WI
Lowest measured rate (limited data: 1 death)
1.1
Lowest rate per 100k
12.3
Cohort median (typical large county)
13.7
Large-county average

Download the FARS state extract cited on this page: fars-state-fatality-statistics.csv (NHTSA FARS · CC BY 4.0).

1.1

Ozaukee County, WI has the lowest rate per 100k

13.7

Average across 993 large US counties

12×

Safer than the large-county average (limited data: the #1 rate rests on very few deaths)

Lowest road-fatality rates among large US counties

2023 deaths per 100,000 residents (counties with 50,000+ people). Shorter is safer. * rests on 1 to 3 deaths: limited data.

per 100k

What this shows Dense, transit-served urban and inner-suburban counties dominate the safest ranks. Ozaukee County, WI records just 1.1 road deaths per 100,000 residents, about 12 times safer than the large-county average of 13.7, but that rate rests on 1 death in 2023 (limited data).

Source NHTSA FARS over US Census population As of 2023
# County Rate / 100k Deaths (2023) Population
1 Ozaukee County, WI Limited data 1.1 1 93,460
2 Cayuga County, NY Limited data 1.3 1 74,485
3 Alexandria (City) County, VA Limited data 1.3 2 155,230
4 Lynchburg (City) County, VA Limited data 1.3 1 79,535
5 Jefferson County, OH Limited data 1.6 1 64,026
6 Bristol County, RI Limited data 2.0 1 50,255
7 New York County, NY 2.1 33 1,597,451
8 Olmsted County, MN 2.4 4 164,784
9 Richmond County, NY 2.4 12 490,687
10 Kings County, NY 2.5 63 2,561,225
11 Middlesex County, MA 2.6 43 1,623,952
12 Scott County, MN 2.6 4 155,814
13 Davis County, UT 2.7 10 373,207
14 Suffolk County, MA 2.9 22 768,425
15 Greene County, OH 2.9 5 169,691
16 Columbia County, GA 3.0 5 165,162
17 Marquette County, MI Limited data 3.0 2 66,999
18 Burleigh County, ND Limited data 3.0 3 100,012
19 Arlington County, VA 3.0 7 234,162
20 Hunterdon County, NJ 3.1 4 130,183
21 McHenry County, IL 3.2 10 312,800
22 Christian County, MO Limited data 3.2 3 94,422
23 Bronx County, NY 3.2 44 1,356,476
24 Hudson County, NJ 3.5 25 705,472
25 Queens County, NY 3.5 78 2,252,196

Limited data: 9 of these 25 counties rest on fewer than 4 road deaths in 2023 (Ozaukee 1, Cayuga 1, Alexandria (City) 2, Lynchburg (City) 1, Jefferson 1, Bristol 1, Marquette 2, Burleigh 3, Christian 3). With so few deaths, one more or fewer moves the rate by a third or more, so their place in this sort is not a like-for-like comparison with counties that have more deaths. The 50,000-resident floor does not remove them; the Deaths column shows the count each rate is built from.

Why do these counties rank safest?

The safest counties cluster around dense, transit-served metro areas where average trip speeds are lower, more journeys happen on foot or rail, and trauma care is close at hand. The most dangerous counties, by contrast, tend to be rural, with high-speed two-lane highways, long distances to a hospital, and lower seatbelt use. Read our analysis of the rural road paradox and per-mile versus per-capita risk for the full picture.

How this ranking is built

Each county's rate is its 2023 road deaths divided by its 2023 population, expressed per 100,000 residents. Deaths come from the NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System; population from the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (Vintage 2023). Only counties with at least 50,000 residents are ranked here; that floor removes the tiniest populations, but a county can still record just 1 to 3 deaths in the year, so those rows carry a Limited data marker and the Deaths column shows the count each rate rests on. We show both the cohort average and the cohort median, since a small number of high-rate rural outliers can pull the average up, the median is the more representative "typical large county" figure. See our methodology for the full data pipeline.