Most Dangerous Days of the Year to Drive on the Road

Some days are much more dangerous to drive than others.  I flipped the nerd switch and crunched 10 years of daily data for traffic fatalities across the nation and looked at worst days, worst 3 day periods and worst 7 day periods to help see which were the deadliest days to be on the road, worst weekends, and worst weeks.

Here are the 4 worst periods to be on the road

1.  New Years Eve – Your odds of dying are 60% higher of a road fatality on the 31st of December vs just the day before.  Put a huge number of people on the road late at night with lots of alcohol in them and you have the best day to die of the year .

2.  4th of July Weekend – Deadliest 3 days of the year.  This entire weekend is as bad as New Years Eve for all the same reasons except it’s 3x longer!  The warm weather brings out the traffic congestion.

3.  First Week of August – Cramming end of summer parties/vacations before school starts make the first part of August by far the worst week to be on the roads.

4.  Labor Day Weekend

Other interesting tidbits: Halloween, Thanksgiving.  Fridays and Saturdays are the most dangerous days of the week.

Suggestion:  To help remember which days are extra dangerous and therefore the most important to be mindful/careful, I created calendar alerts in my cell phone and put them on annual repeat so I get a simple reminder.  Without automated alerts, I’m sure I’ll be distracted and forget during all the bustle.  Took 3 minutes.