Why Montana Ranked in Top 5 for Most Dangerous States to Drive In

Montana is my favorite place in the whole world. There's countless reasons why it's a great place to live, which is why state pride is so common here. Montanans will boast about having the best fishing, beer or you name it. But let's be real— Montana's not the best when it comes to being safe to drive in.

The data-news outlet Staker, using the Federal Highway Administration's 2020 highway statistics report, ranked each state for driving safety based on fatalities per billion miles traveled. Montana was the 4th-most dangerous state to drive in, this article has the whole list. Here's why driving in Montana is so dangerous:

Wildlife Accidents

Stacker also ranked each state for likelihood to hit an animal using the annual collision study from State Farm and ranked Montana 2nd worst, check out the whole list here.

Snow

Safewise, a website that analyzes safety and security information, "analyzed the number of fatal car crashes due to rain and snow in each state using the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) 2016 crash data" and found how common snow-related driving accidents are per 100,000 people in each state. Anyone who's spent a winter here shouldn't be surprised that Montana was ranked the 3rd worst on this list.

Highways

This article has information on what makes our top-5-most-dangerous roads so deadly.

DUI Deaths

The driving education website Zutobi used "the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) crash data tool, the Fatality and Injury Reporting System Tool (FIRST), and NSC (National Safety Council) injury data" to find which states have the most drunk driving per capita. Sadly, based on the factors they chose, Zutobi determined Montana has the most drunk driving in the country. Out of the factors I've written about in this article, this is the one that Montanans can control. Don't drive drunk.