by VDC Staff

Vermont may be small, but its roads carry an outsized risk. The state’s rate of fatal crashes during overtaking maneuvers sits at 5.57 per million residents — nearly 45% above the national average of 3.84. On Vermont’s rural roads, a split-second misjudgment while passing another vehicle can turn deadly.

That finding comes from a study by personal injury firm Easton & Easton, LLP, which analyzed federal crash data across all 50 states from 2020 through 2024. Researchers calculated a standardized fatality rate per million residents for each state, then ranked them.

Vermont lands at No. 7 nationally — sandwiched between Alabama (5.63) and Hawaii (5.13), a tight cluster where differences between states are razor-thin.

The gap widens sharply when Vermont is measured against the safest states. Rhode Island’s rate is just over three times lower, New York’s more than three and a half times lower, and Massachusetts over four times lower. The starkest contrast is with neighboring New Hampshire, which posts an extraordinarily low rate of just 0.86 per million — making Vermont’s figure more than six and a half times higher.

Year-to-year trends in Vermont are volatile, which isn’t surprising given the small population. Fatal overtaking crashes climbed from one in 2020 to a peak of eight in 2023, then dropped sharply back to one in 2024. With numbers that small, a single bad year can swing the statistics dramatically — but the five-year average tells a consistent story of elevated risk.

Full report and methodology: Google Doc