9 states earn ‘danger’ grade for their traffic safety laws in new report

(NEXSTAR) – Laws are being put into place every year to make driving that much safer for residents across the country. Many of these laws are decided on a state-by-state level, which leads to many states not meeting the standards for maintaining “safe traffic safety laws.”

To determine which states are lacking in traffic safety and which are ahead of the curve, the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety releases an annual report that grades every state on how safe their traffic laws are.

States are graded on the laws that each has that address several different common driving issues, such as distracted or impaired driving, child passenger safety, speeding, red light running, and several more.

If states have the optimal laws that seem to make it safe for drivers in a specific category, they are graded as “good.” If they have some optimal laws, but could do more to make it safer for a category, they are graded as “caution.” And if there are no optimal laws in place or potentially only one, they are graded as “danger.”

Based on a state’s performance in each category, they are given two points if they were considered “good,” one point for “caution,” and zero points for “danger.”

These points are then tallied up to create a final grade, where having eight or more points is “good,” seven to four points is “caution,” and three to zero points is “danger.”

With the final grades in place, the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety found that nine states graded out as having “danger” grades. These states were Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming.

On a grade-by-grade basis, Missouri ranked as the worst state in the country for traffic safety laws, receiving zero total points. This is because Missouri actually has no single law in place that was considered safe for any of the categories used in the grading, according to the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.

Montana and Wyoming finished tied for second-to-last with one total point, followed by Nebraska and Nevada with two points apiece, and lastly Idaho, Michigan, Oklahoma, and South Dakota each had three points.

Check out the full map below to see how every state graded out.

On the other side, only five total states and Washington, D.C., finished with a “good” grade.

Oregon graded out as the safest state for traffic safety laws in the country, receiving 10 total points. The only areas where Oregon didn’t receive a perfect score were for young drivers and child passenger safety, which each graded as “caution.”

Not far behind was neighboring Washington with nine points, which was tied with Washington, DC, followed by Maryland, New York, and Rhode Island, which each had eight points.

To see more in-depth data on every state, check out Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety’s full 2026 report right here.