Travel / car crash These States Have the Most Dangerous Roads Mississippi tops the list By Evann Gastaldo, Newser Staff Posted Jun 20, 2018 2:26 PM CDT Copied Traffic races I-55 South, just past the Louisiana-Mississippi state line, near Independence, La., as rising flood water creeps toward the interstate highway, Saturday, Aug. 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) Driving is inherently dangerous—motor vehicle crashes are consistently among the leading causes of death in the US—but it's more dangerous in some places than others .24/7 Wall St. looked at death rates from car crashes in all US states to come up with a list of the most dangerous roads, finding that most of the states with the highest fatality rates are in the south while the northeast and midwest tend to have safer roads. "A big factor in a state’s fatality rate is how much of its area is rural," one expert explains, as rural roads often have higher speed limits as well as trees and telephone poles lining them, boosting the chances of a collision. The 10 states whose roads are the most dangerous: Mississippi: 23.1 road deaths per 100,000 people Alabama: 21.3 road deaths per 100,000 people South Carolina: 20.5 road deaths per 100,000 people New Mexico: 19.3 road deaths per 100,000 people Wyoming: 19.1 road deaths per 100,000 people Kentucky: 18.8 road deaths per 100,000 people Arkansas: 18.2 road deaths per 100,000 people Montana: 18.2 road deaths per 100,000 people Oklahoma: 17.4 road deaths per 100,000 people Louisiana: 16.2 road deaths per 100,000 people Click for the complete list. (More car crash stories.) Report an error