Minnesota is a Top Five State for a Grim Winter Statistic
Here's another category in which Minnesota is rated above most other states-- but it's not really one in which we'd like to be on top.
That's because Minnesota is the fourth-ranked state in the nation when it comes to the most snow-related driving fatalities. Yikes. That's the word, anyway, from the most recent CoPilot survey released late last year. It looked at traffic statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and its Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) from 2014 through 2018.
In compiling its data, the survey said it only looked at fatal vehicle crashes where the surface road condition at the time of the crash was reported to be snow, ice, or slush. So, yeah, Minnesota certainly has enough of those conditions on our roads pretty much anytime between late October and April each season.
This might explain why Minnesota had the fourth-most winter traffic fatalities in the survey, coming in with nearly 12 percent of all winter-related fatal crashes during that five-year period. Only Wyoming, North Dakota, and Alaska (which was ranked first in the nation in this grim category) ranked higher than Minnesota did when it comes to fatal winter traffic crashes, according to the study.
Interestingly, my home state of Wisconsin-- which has winters and snowfall similar to our climate here in Minnesota-- was ranked 9th in the survey. And our neighbors to the south down in Iowa came outside of the top ten, ranking 11th out of the 50 states in the survey. (Perhaps parts of Iowa are located far enough south that they don't get as much winter weather as Minnesota and Wisconsin?)
And speaking of winter weather, we all know Minnesota ranks right up there when it comes to some mind-numbing cold each year. So keep scrolling to check out just how many Minnesota municipalities made it onto the list of the Coldest Cities in America (including one that should look fairly familiar!)
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