Allstate: July 4 is the deadliest day on America’s roads

By Stephen Edelstein July 5, 2013

Insurance giant Allstate hopes everyone was extra careful as they celebrated America’s Independence Day. Its researchers claim July 4 is the deadliest day of the year on the road.

It sounds almost too sinister to be true (and makes it far too tempting to include a few lines in this article cheaply juxtaposing wholesome patriotic family barbecues with gruesome car crashes), but Allstate cites Insurance Institute for Highway Safety data showing 670 car accident deaths on July 4 between 2007 and 2011.

That’s an average of 134 deaths on that day each year, or almost three per state.

Allstate did not speculate on the cause of this high death rate in its report, although it’s not hard to imagine a major holiday in the middle of summer being a bad time to take a road trip.

Unlike Thanksgiving and Christmas, Independence Day doesn’t set ridership records on Amtrak or the major airlines. The car is more popular at this time of the year.

Have a July 4 driving horror story to share, or is it really not that bad out there? Let us know in the comments.

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Stephen Edelstein

Contributing Editor

Stephen is a freelance automotive journalist covering all things cars. He likes anything with four wheels, from classic cars…

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