Study: Rural roads have 48% of U.S. traffic deaths

The population is lower and traffic congestion is less, but that doesn’t stop rural roads from having a disproportionate share of highway deaths.

In a 73-page study released last week by the Governor’s Highway Safety Association, America’s Rural Roads: Beautiful and Deadly, researchers found that about 48% of U.S. traffic deaths occurred on rural roads from 2016-20 even though only about 19% of the population lives in rural areas. As a result of the study of federal accident statistics, paid for by State Farm Insurance, the association is pushing for states to improve their education and safety efforts in rural areas.

The issues on rural roads — distractions, impaired driving, speeding and not wearing seat belts — often are the same as in urban areas, but they occur at a higher rate in rural areas, often with deadlier results.

In 2020, drivers taking a trip the same length were 62% more likely to die if they were in a rural area rather than an urban area, the study said. A total of 85,002 people died on rural roads in the five-year period, nearly half of all traffic deaths across the country.

Overall, the death rate per 100 million miles driven was substantially higher in rural areas, 1.76, than in urban areas, 1.09.

How and why does this happen? The study cites a number of reasons that lead to drivers exhibiting risky behavior, including open roads, less law enforcement, longer trips for necessities, limited emergency response from farther away and fewer public transit options.

“It’s not that we don’t know why this happens. This isn’t a great mystery,” said Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the governors association. “Getting people to slow down and wear their seat belts and not drink and drive are important. We have to do a better job as a country everywhere.”

Although the results were nearly as deadly, the details and demographics were different in rural crashes than in urban crashes during the five-year period, the study found:

• More drivers and passengers in cars, trucks and vans died in rural areas (68,709 to 56,998) but urban areas led in deaths involving motorcycles (15,390 to 9,310), pedestrians

(25,551 to 5,766) and bicycles (3,375 to 952).

• 61.4% of fatal accidents in rural areas involved pickup trucks compared to 38.6% in urban areas.

• Younger people are particularly at risk on rural roads, where drivers 20 to 24 years old accounted for 10.4% of deaths compared to 5% in urban areas.

• Substantially more people in rural areas who weren’t wearing seat belts died in crashes, 32,567 to 23,438.

• More fatal rural crashes involved people driving alone and going off the roadway (34,743 to 25,536); headon crashes (12,339 to 7.275); and sideswipe crashes (5,589 to 4,650).

Somewhat surprisingly, road conditions are considered to be little or no factor in most deadly crashes on country roads.

The study recommends that states stress the “safe system” approach in rural areas: safe vehicles, safe roads, safe speeds, safe road users and post-crash care.

States with higher speed limits tend to have crashes with more serious injuries in areas with limited medical care, resulting in fatalities. So reducing speed limits and increasing medical training and the availability of emergency care would help, the studysaid.

“Clearly, a holistic approach is needed to address the rural road safety problem — one that includes both behavioral and infrastructure safety,” the study said. “[State safety offices] in partnership with engineers, planners, advocates, law enforcement agencies, educators and many others can and must play a role in advancing the Safe System approach in rural areas.”

The study did not include a state-by-state breakdown of rural traffic deaths but the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation said it already is deploying safety countermeasures in thousands of rural areas across the state.

“Rural road safety is addressed through both engineering and education,” PennDOT spokeswoman Jennifer Kuntch said in an email. “These countermeasures include rumble strips, high-friction surface treatments, high tension cable median barriers, shoulder widening, and the installation of special curve warning signs and pavement markings.”

Curve warnings and highfriction surfaces have been particularly effective. A study by Penn State found that warnings about dangerous curves reduced crashes between 23% and 35%, and a study by the Federal Highway Administration determined that high-friction surfaces in 61 locations reduced crashes by 57%, injury crashes by 48.5%, run-offthe-road crashes by 72.1%, wet road surface crashes by 83.2%, and head-on/opposite direction sideswipe crashes by 30.1%.

This year’s state Strategic Highway Safety Plan puts special emphasis on lane-departure crashes, which accounted for 52% of fatalities from 2016-20 and are a particular problem in rural areas. The state plans to modify roadside areas where there are fixed objects that vehicles can strike, implement more road changes such as rumble strips between lanes and try to develop technology to keep drivers in their lanes.