NATIONAL RANKING
Safest States for Driving
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Fatality Analysis Reporting System, these are all 51 U.S. jurisdictions ranked by road fatality rate per 100,000 residents from safest to deadliest. PlainRoadSafety's September 2026 refresh sorts that published rate ascending.
- Massachusetts
- #1 Safest State
- 4.9
- Lowest rate per 100k
Download the FARS state extract cited on this page: fars-state-fatality-statistics.csv (NHTSA FARS · CC BY 4.0).
What the ranking shows
Massachusetts posts the lowest road-fatality rate at 4.9 per 100k residents, about 1.7× safer than Connecticut at 8.5 - #10 Connecticut is the bottom of this complete list of 10 states. The U.S. benchmark sits at 12.2 per 100k (2023 NHTSA FARS).
- Massachusetts
- #1 safest · 4.9/100k
- 8.5
- #10, bottom of this complete list
- 12.2
- U.S. rate per 100k
- 1.7×
- highest-to-lowest spread
Source: NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). Ranked by fatalities per 100,000 population (ascending).
Massachusetts
#1 safest state at 4.9 per 100k residents
12.2
U.S. rate per 100k (2023)
1.7x
How much safer MA is vs. the deadliest state (CT)
Top 10 Safest States by Fatality Rate
Road deaths per 100,000 population. Lower values indicate safer roads relative to population size.
- MA
Massachusetts
5 per 100k
- NY
New York
6 per 100k
- DC
District of Columbia
7 per 100k
- HI
Hawaii
7 per 100k
- NJ
New Jersey
7 per 100k
- RI
Rhode Island
7 per 100k
- MN
Minnesota
7 per 100k
- AK
Alaska
8 per 100k
- UT
Utah
8 per 100k
- CT
Connecticut
9 per 100k
What this shows Massachusetts has the lowest fatality rate at 4.9 per 100,000 residents, well below the U.S. rate of 12.2.
| # | State | Rate / 100K | VMT Rate | Total Fatalities | Latest Year | Drunk % | Speed % | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Massachusetts (MA) | 0.6 | 3,303 | 343 | 25.0% | 25.0% | ↓ decreasing | |
| 2 | New York (NY) | 0.9 | 9,578 | 1,114 | 18.1% | 6.6% | ↓ decreasing | |
| 3 | District of Columbia (DC) | 1.3 | 288 | 44 | 25.7% | 45.5% | ↑ increasing | |
| 4 | Hawaii (HI) | 0.9 | 933 | 93 | 33.3% | 30.4% | ↓ decreasing | |
| 5 | New Jersey (NJ) | 0.8 | 5,481 | 606 | 22.8% | 11.3% | ↓ decreasing | |
| 6 | Rhode Island (RI) | 0.9 | 549 | 71 | 32.2% | 19.9% | ↑ increasing | |
| 7 | Minnesota (MN) | 0.7 | 3,641 | 409 | 26.9% | 26.0% | ↓ decreasing | |
| 8 | Alaska (AK) | 1.1 | 651 | 60 | 33.2% | 37.8% | ↓ decreasing | |
| 9 | Utah (UT) | 0.8 | 2,547 | 280 | 19.6% | 28.3% | ↓ decreasing | |
| 10 | Connecticut (CT) | 1.0 | 2,673 | 308 | 32.0% | 33.1% | ↓ decreasing |
What Makes a State Safer?
States with lower fatality rates often benefit from combinations of factors: stricter traffic enforcement, better road infrastructure, lower speed limits, urban density (lower-speed roads), stronger seatbelt laws, and lower rates of alcohol-impaired driving. Population density plays a role too – states with more urban driving tend to have lower-speed collisions that are less likely to be fatal. According to NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System, this ranking draws on the full 2015-2023 census across all 51 states; see our methodology for how the per-capita rate is computed.
Source: NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) Rates are per 100,000 population