Here’s how California motorists compare to those in other states and where the most fatal crashes are.
California, the nation’s most populous state, has about 396,540 miles of roads. There were about 10,498 fatal accidents on those roads from 2017 to 2019, according to the California Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System, and Transportation Injury Mapping System, Safe Transportation Research and Education Center, at UC Berkeley.
The state averages about 178,300 injuries in vehicle crashes a year, with a peak in the past 10 years of 198,899 in 2016.From 2017-2019, 27% of fatal accidents were related to drunken driving, and speeding contributed to 28% of the accidents.Novembers had the most fatal accidents and Septembers had the second most.
Ranking drivers by state
According to insurance rate comparison company Quotewizard.com, California has the fourth-worst drivers in the nation. These rankings were based on a series of statistics, including the analysis of over 2 million insurance quotes. Drivers were evaluated on four factors:
• Accidents
• Speeding tickets
• DUIs
• Citations
California drivers had the fourth-highest number of accidents and citations, the fifth-highest number of DUIs and the 37th-highest number of speeding infractions. They credit this last abnormally low number to all the traffic, preventing drivers from speeding. The rankings are based on per capita figures from self-reported proprietary data.
10 deadliest road stretches in California
This fatality data is from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 2017, 2018 and 2019, the most recent available. Compiled by data analyst Doug Milnes of MoneyGeek.com.
Sources: California Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System, Transportation Injury Mapping System, Safe Transportation Research and Education Center, UC Berkeley, quotewizard.com, MoneyGeek.com