U.S. is Third Most Dangerous Country to Drive In

The United States ranks third out of 56 countries for the most dangerous places to drive with a fatality rate of 12.4 per 100,000 population, according to an analysis from Zutobi.

The only two countries that rank worse than the U.S. are Thailand and South Africa, with fatality rates of 32.7 and 25.9, respectively.

However, the report evaluates far more than just the fatality rate to give a country its overall safety score. For example, Zutobi explored other factors such as maximum speed limits, number of people who wear a seat belt, and collisions attributed to alcohol use.

While Germany and Poland boast the highest maximum speed limits —141 mph and 140 mph, respectively — the U.S. is not very far behind with a maximum speed limit of 130 mph.

Yet National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data shows that speeding puts everyone at risk. In the U.S., speeding killed 9.478 people in 2019 alone.

Add to that the fact that the Zutobi analysis shows that the U.S. ranks ninth out of 56 countries when it comes to road deaths linked to alcohol use. Here again, NHTSA data reinforces the fact that drunk driving is among the biggest hazards on the roadways with approximately 28 people in the U.S. dying in drunk driving crashes every day — that’s one person every 52 minutes.

When it comes to seat belt compliance, the Zutobi report shows that the U.S. performed about average as compared with our countries, with a score of 90.1. This number reflects a national estimate of the percentage of car occupants who use a seatbelt when traveling in the front of a vehicle, according to the World Health Organization.

The three countries that earned the top overall safety scores for best places to drive include Norway, which ranked first, followed by Japan and Sweden.