This State Has the Most Car Crashes

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 13, 11:15AM EST

Quick Read

A recent analysis reveals that Massachusetts has the greatest rate of car crashes in the United States.
Reasons for the high rates in New England are unclear.

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There are almost 6 million car crashes a year in the United States. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports that there are over 40,000 deaths from these accidents. The rate of accidents varies substantially from state to state. Massachusetts takes the top spot based on crashes per total drivers.

The reasons for the crash rate in Massachusetts are unclear. The state government may be aware of the problem and has taken several measures. It adopted a law for the use of hands-free mobile phones in 2020. Another piece of legislation created a law for how drivers operate their vehicles around what is termed “vulnerable road users.” The law also added rules about the engagement of roadside workers, bikes, and people on foot. However, there is no direct proof about whether these plans improved crash rates.

Insurify reports that the Massachusetts accident rate is 6.07%. New Hampshire (5.81%), Rhode Island (5.63%), and Maine (5.38%) follow. No reason was given for why the states with the worst records are in New England.

There is no geographic concentration among the states with the best accident records. They are led by Michigan (1.68%), Mississippi (2.86%), Illinois (3.02%), New Mexico (3.03%), and Hawaii (3.31%).

Another set of data has to do with age. The rate of car crashes among baby boomers was 3.12% in 2024. Among Gen X, the figure was 3.51%. Among millennials, it was 4.24%, and among Gen Z it was 6.84%.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.