Rural roads the most dangerous
This may come as a surprise to metro Atlantans who fight terrible traffic every day. But rural two-lane highways are the largest single class of roads in the United States -- and they are the deadliest, especially in the Southeast. From 1996 to 2000, almost one-third of the nation's traffic fatalities occurred in just eight southeastern states, and of those, 64 percent occurred on rural roads. From 1996 to 2000, almost one-third of the nation's traffic fatalities occurred in just eight southeastern states, and of those, 64 percent occurred on rural roads, according to a recent Georgia Institute of Technology study. Take Florida - a less rural state - out of the analysis, and 71 percent of traffic fatalities in the region occurred on these highways as compared to 59 percent nationally. See article on Georgia Tech research project.
The story is much the same in other regions. A Maine newspaper reports that a study by The Road Information Program (TRIP), a national transportation research group, concluded that 52 percent of highway fatalities nationwide from 1999 to 2003 occurred on rural roads, even though just 28 percent of traffic traveled such roads. that motorists on rural routes are 61/2 times more likely to be killed while attempting to negotiate a curve and four times as likely to be involved in a fatal collision between vehicles going in the opposite direction than motorists traveling on all other routes. Most head-on crashes on rural roads are likely caused by a motorist making an unintentional maneuver as a result of driver fatigue, being distracted or driving too fast in a curve. See article.
One frequent cause of serious accidents on rural roads is the 2.5- to 5-inch pavement drop-offs often found on rural highway edges. Drop-offs develop as roads are repaved and/or soil erodes along the shoulder, and in caused by rural mail carriers who drive with one side of their vehicles on the road and the other on the unpaved shoulder. Other fatal crash contributing factors cited in the study are: collisions with commercial trucks (one of every eight traffic fatalities), speeding, inexperienced drivers, weather and driver reaction to an unexpected occurrence in the car or on the roadway (e.g., a deer in the road).