The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has some interesting stats available to the public through their Fatality Analysis Reporting System.
One of the statistics they keep is the number of crashes on each day of the year. We decided it would be interesting to see which days had the most accidents and which days had the lowest number of crashes across the country.
Without further ado, here are the fifteen days with the most accidents on average from 1999-2008 (ten years):
Most Accidents
- January 1 132.1 average crashes
- July 4 131.5 average crashes
- July 3 126.3 average crashes
- August 3 123.3 average crashes
- September 2 122.7 average crashes
- September 1 120.9 average crashes
- August 6 120.8 average crashes
- September 22 120.6 average crashes
- July 2 120.4 average crashes
- October 14 119.7 average crashes
- August 4 119.6 average crashes
- August 31 119.5 average crashes
- June 30 119.2 average crashes
- July 15 118.4 average crashes
- August 11 118.3 average crashes
It’s no surprise to see New Years Day and the 4th of July near the top of the list, but there a few odd ones in there.
Least Accidents
- January 8 81.9 average crashes
- January 23 82.1 average crashes
- January 29 82.6 average crashes
- January 30 83.2 average crashes
- January 15 83.2 average crashes
- February 27 83.3 average crashes
- January 24 83.4 average crashes
- January 2 83.6 average crashes
- March 14 85.1 average crashes
- March 20 85.1 average crashes
- December 25 85.2 average crashes
- February 1 85.3 average crashes
- February 28 85.4 average crashes
- February 9 85.5 average crashes
- March 22 85.7 average crashes
The winter months dominate this list which makes sense. The danger of icy roads obviously didn’t outweigh the lower amount of drivers on the road.
Wondering where your birthday falls on the list? Wondering if tomorrow will be more or less dangerous than average?
Check out the full list of rankings.
