Mississippi is always the worst of any statistic
this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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Ok, noted: New York is almost on par with civilized regions.
That might be skewed as most of their population are in New York City, and more than half of the city doesn't even own a car.
That's pretty much the point of the chart. Better public infrastructure decrease the deaths from cars.
I understand this is largely due to Americans wanting to get drunk like everyone else but also having to drive everywhere.
And gigantic motor vehicles.
And terrible roads and/or regulations? I can't help but notice the worst offenders are conservative areas and those usually are neglectful.
The transportation departments of red states just funnel the monies to corrupt buddies and nothing gets fixed even though there is perpetual road work being (performatively) done.
And lack of pedestrian infrastructure, and..., and... We can go on and on at how baked into the cake these deaths are in the car cult.
There are so many dumb regulations and circumstances that functionally push people to giant vehicles.
For instance: I replaced my 2016 VW golf base model with an electric F150 this year for a multitude of reasons. I got a refund from insurance (with the same coverage). None of this makes sense except that I'm less likely to be injured by other motorists in my 3.5ton truck. I found this depressing.
Thought it would be interesting to compare with EU, they published an article in 2023 (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?oldid=630784) with the following data. This graph uses a number per 1 million inhabitants so divide by 10 to compare it.
As far as I know Finland has the world's strictest driving licence, so I'm actually surprised to see it posting worse statistics than Sweden here.
Sweden went insane with road security in the nineties (nollvisionen?) so maybe that's why.
Sweden is as expected. 200-something fatalities for 10 million people. Norway stands out😃
It got me thinking about definitions, though. For Sweden every death during transportation is counted (including busses, heavy trucks and single accidents with a bike), while the definition my 2 minute googling found for Canada said deaths resulting from accidents involving automobiles.
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The way this chart is formatted is making me more angry than it should lol
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Victoria is that low cos they don’t fuck around when it comes to driving fines. The speed limit means limit, and they’re cracking down hard on drivers using phones.
Victorians are some of the worst/dangerous drivers I've seen, but I'm not in Victoria.
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I remember reading years back that Mississippi is the only state where it's legal for the driver to drink while driving (as long as they keep it below 0.08). Multiple defenders on Reddit said its safe because its still below the legal limit.
Couldnt be related, could it? Nahhh
https://dui.drivinglaws.org/resources/can-a-passenger-drink-alcohol.htm
I don't know much about Mississippi, but I know that in neighboring Louisiana, there are drive-through daiquiri places.
the fine print of the law says that the open container law is not applicable to containers with frozen alcoholic beverage where the lid is intact and no straw is protruding through the lid.
In most cases, daiquiris adhere to the “tape rule.” Most daiquiri shops will put a piece of tape over the straw hold on the lid. If this tape is removed or broken then the drink is considered an open container.
So a piece of tape counts as a "seal." They're not even trying.
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America is more in the middle of the road when you look at the whole globe, and don’t just select a few counties with lower death rates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate
Africa is currently the reigning champ for vehicle related deaths.
Yes, but that does not make it any better, since the US should be compared to other Western developed countries. That is like people saying that the number of gun deaths in the US isn't that bad because they are worse in Ukraine or Syria, you know, active war zones.
I think it’s fair to compare like with like. Many African countries have poor infrastructure, inadequate enforcement of traffic laws, rapid urbanization, unsafe vehicles, and limited emergency medical services. Its easy for a Western country to look better compared to that, but is it a fair comparison?
The Netherlands has 4.19
The Netherlands is close in size to Maryland, and close in the number of inhabitants as New York. Also half of the traffic is cars and half is bicycles. It's pretty insane how bad Mississippi is.
I tried looking into why Mississippi was so far worse. Mostly just finding people self report texting and driving more there, infrastructure is shitty, enforcement is shitty, DUIs are high they recently just upped the civil fine of texting while driving from $25 to $100.
For fun I looked to see what Mississippi would be like if it was its own country, and do to GDP it was compared to Morocco and Kenya.
Car Deaths per 100,000
Mississippi: 26 Morocco: 17.29 Kenya: 28
Kenya is 4x as dense as Mississippi is though, so still hard to say Mississippi is safer than Kenya. It's just numbers
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yes but whole africa is developing nations with ultra bad infrastructure like roads and intersections. You should be comparing USA to peering nations, like western europe or countries of the commonwealth. Unless you admit that USA is also third world shit hole
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getting a drivers license in mississippi is basically show up to the DMV, suck a cock and drive home or what?
Mississippi has drive-through combo shops: liquor store / DMV / KFC.
Saves time on your way to and home from church.
21 Mississippi, 22 Mississippi...
Took a closer look to see if I was surprised by any correlation about poverty, and browsed away with the belief that the south is still a shithole... which might still correlate with poverty. I think kansas/oregon is the first entry that wouldn't be 'south.'
Drinkin' beers an' drivin' yer trukk is a highly traditional pastime in the US deep south. Typically done in the middle of the night, in my experience, for the maximum probability of contacting the local wildlife or making friends at high speed with a tree.
You can always count on Mississippi! I'm surprised Texas isn't higher, we drive like maniacs.
New Jersey is too low. Serious doubts about the validity of this table.
It's comparing against total population, not driving population, so any amount of mass transit will greatly reduce this number
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Not surprised by SC, as a Canadian I had one accident in 40 years of driving, it was in SC, caused by a 17yo girl driving an old suburban or something.
I'd like to see the % of trucks vs cars for each location.
The south is killing it!
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