The States With the Worst Drivers, Ranked. Here’s Where Ohio Falls
Ohio recorded 1,125 traffic deaths last year, the fourth straight year that number has dropped.
A new nationwide study measured something different: Not how many people died, but how a state’s drivers behave behind the wheel.
The numbers don’t flatter every state.
Here’s how Ohio stacks up against the whole country.
How the States Were Ranked
LendingTree scored every state’s drivers in a new nationwide ranking.
The company’s insurance branch pulled tens of millions of auto insurance inquiries from January through September of 2025, sorted by where each driver lives.
That built a rate of accidents, DUIs, speeding violations, and other citations per 1,000 drivers in every state, published as LendingTree’s Best and Worst Drivers by State report.
What Counts As an “Incident”
LendingTree’s ranking isn’t a simple crash count.
The score blends four things: Accidents, DUI citations, speeding violations, and other tickets like failure to yield or driving without insurance.
A state can rank poorly without a single high-profile crash driving the number up.
North Dakota topped the list at 64 driving incidents per 1,000 drivers.
Michigan’s drivers logged the fewest, under 21 per 1,000.
That’s the range.
1. North Dakota
North Dakota tops the country’s list of worst drivers.
The state posts the nation’s highest DUI rate and its highest speeding-violation rate, both at once.
Wide-open roads and thin patrol coverage make speeding tempting on rural stretches, the study notes.
That combination adds up fast.
North Dakota’s overall score lands at 64 incidents for every 1,000 drivers, the worst mark in the country.
2. New Jersey
New Jersey ranks as the country’s second-worst state for driver behavior.
Its accident rate is the highest in the nation, well ahead of every other state’s.
DUIs and speeding tickets barely register there by comparison.
New Jersey’s trouble sits almost entirely in one column.
It’s crashes, mostly.
Speed, impairment, and distraction are the most common factors behind those wrecks, per the same study.
3. Utah
Utah lands third-worst nationally for driver behavior.
Speeding violations drive much of that ranking, the second-highest rate of any state.
Utah’s overall incident score comes in at nearly 55 per 1,000 drivers.
A booming population and busy interstates likely play a part, though the study doesn’t break out the reason state by state.
Utah drives fast.
4. Rhode Island
Rhode Island ranks fourth-worst in the country.
Its accident rate runs second-highest nationally, just behind New Jersey’s.
Rhode Island is the smallest state in the country by area.
Its population density trails only New Jersey’s, the second-highest in the nation.
Not much room.
Short trips add up to a lot of chances to collide.
It’s a small state with big traffic.
5. Washington
Washington also lands among the worst five states for driver behavior.
Its overall score lands at nearly 45 incidents per 1,000 drivers.
Accidents make up most of that number, while DUIs and speeding tickets run comparatively low there.
Rain and mountain passes complicate driving conditions across much of the state for a good part of the year.
The weather doesn’t help.
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Where Ohio Ranks
Ohio doesn't crack that worst-five group.
It isn't near the bottom of the list either.
It landed 23rd worst out of the 51 places LendingTree ranked, all 50 states plus Washington, D.C.
That puts Ohio's drivers in the rougher half of the country, worse than 22 states and better than 28.
Ohio's overall score comes in at 36 incidents per 1,000 drivers.
Ohio's biggest source of trouble is accidents, not DUIs or speeding.
Accidents alone account for about 17 of those 36 incidents per 1,000 drivers.
DUIs sit low, under 1.5 per 1,000 drivers.
Speeding violations sit even lower, just over 3.
Meanwhile, Michigan, directly across the state line, posted the fewest incidents of any state in the entire ranking, under 21 per 1,000 drivers.
Pennsylvania and Indiana both ranked safer than Ohio too, each posting incident rates well below Ohio's 36.
Ohio's Crash Numbers
Ohio's own crash data tells a similar story to the LendingTree ranking.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol counted 1,125 traffic deaths in 2025, the fourth straight year that number has dropped.
That's down 3% from 2024, a decline state troopers credit partly to Ohio's distracted driving law.
Fewer families got that call.
Primary enforcement of that law began October 5, 2023, letting an officer pull a driver over for holding a phone alone, with no other violation needed.
Fatalities dropped 11% in the two years after enforcement began, compared to the two years before it.
Two factors show up again and again in Ohio's fatal crashes.
About 62% of Ohio's traffic deaths from 2021 through 2025 involved someone who wasn't wearing a seatbelt, even though the vehicle came equipped with a seatbelt.
Nearly a quarter of the state's fatal crashes involve a vehicle leaving the roadway entirely.
Ohio's Headlights-and-Wipers Rule
Ohio holds drivers to one more rule that catches many people off guard.
State law requires headlights whenever the windshield wipers are running because of rain or snow, per Ohio Revised Code 4513.03.
That's been on the books since 2009.
Visibility is the whole point behind it.
Simple as that.
A car with its wipers going but no headlights on can vanish into the gray of a rainy Ohio afternoon, invisible to the driver merging in behind it.
Ohio law won't let a trooper pull a driver over for this alone.
Troopers only add the rule to the ticket once the car is already stopped for something else.
Wipers go on. Lights go on.
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