Mississippi roadways may be riskier this summer, according to a new study examining how safe it is to drive between the months of June and August.
MoneyGeek found that U.S. summer road deaths fell by 3.8% from 2022 to 2023 and another 4.5% from 2023 to 2024, for a total decline of 8.1% nationwide, with most states seeing improvements over the two-year period. Mississippi and a couple of other states went the wrong way, though.
“Mississippi, South Dakota, and Iowa had higher summer fatality rates in 2024 than in 2022, even as the national summer death toll fell by 8.1%,” the study noted.
While Massachusetts (0.67 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles of travel) is the safest state to drive in the summer, Mississippi (1.88 deaths per 100 million VMT) is the most dangerous. The spread between Massachusetts and Mississippi is now 2.8-to-1, with Mississippi’s fatality rate nearly tripling that of Massachusetts.
Per MoneyGeek researchers, several factors differentiate Mississippi and Massachusetts roadways, contributing to the gap in safety.
“Those two states diverge on road design, speed limits, and how consistently those limits are enforced,” the study continued but did not expound on the factors.
Mississippi’s summer road deaths jumped 11.9% from 2022 to 2024, another statistic that ranked near the bottom. However, fatality rate changes over the two-year period were worse in South Dakota (+36.2%), and Iowa (+29.9%).
The study was based on crash data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and traffic volume data from the Federal Highway Administration. Only preliminary crash numbers for 2025 have been released, but if those hold, next year’s MoneyGeek study is expected to show one of the lowest summer fatality rates nationwide in history.
