The holiday season is prime time for travel, with families making trips anywhere from the next town over to all the way across the country.
Travelers in Alabama might want to be particularly cautious this year after a recent study from Yahoo! Travel revealed that the Yellowhammer State ranks 5th among all 50 states where drivers are most likely to be involved in a fatal accident, according to the Birmingham Business Journal.
The study used data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Highway Administration to determine their rankings, which showed among other things that Alabama is near the top when it comes to concentration of licensed drivers. The sheer per capita number could be one factor influencing the fatality rate in car accidents as only one million of the state’s 4.8 million population are not licensed drivers.
Overall, Alabama drivers have a one in 2,889 of being involved in a fatal crash, and the odds of them being the person killed are about one in 5,673. Somewhat surprisingly, another rural-dominated state, Montana, topped the list, while the bustling metropolis of Washington D.C. ranked dead last.
One of the reasons the study gave for this seemingly counter-intuitive result is the fact that most states with bigger cities have better quality and efficient public transit systems, which means fewer people driving themselves around.
Making sure to keep up with routine maintenance and any necessary repairs is crucial to improving the odds of not being in a car accident. Brake pads, for instance, should be professionally checked every 12,000 miles, or every six to 12 months.
The top five of the list were Montana, Mississippi, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Alabama. The bottom five following D.C. were Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island.
