What Is the Most Dangerous Interstate Highway in Minnesota?

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Minnesota is home to the fifth-largest road system in the United States, but just which interstate highway in the North Star State is the most dangerous?

Minnesota is known as the Land of 10,000 Lakes, but it could also be known as the Land of 135,000 Roads and Streets. That's because according to the Research Department of Minnesota House of Representatives, that's how many miles there are in Minnesota between town roads, city streets, and county roads and highways.

The U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration says that number jumps up to 283,828 miles when you include state highways, U.S. highways, and interstate highways here in the North Star State.

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According to the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), Minnesotans travel over 10 million miles a year (the actual number is 10,705,095,457 miles) on the three main interstate highways that run through our fair state, which would be I-35, I-94, and I-90. There's also I-35W and I-35E as well as I-494 and I-694 which run through the Twin Cities.

But which interstate is Minnesota's most dangerous? That's the question the crew over at the insurance site, Assurance, wanted to answer. They looked at data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to determine the most and least safe interstates across the country according to the number of fatal accidents.

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Here in the Gopher State, our most dangerous interstate is... Interstate 94. I-94 is the ninth-largest interstate in the U.S. and runs east-west for 259 miles through the central portion of the state. On the western border, I-94 enters the state from North Dakota at the city of Moorhead and leaves Minnesota on the eastern border as it heads over the St. Croix River into Wisconsin.

According to Assurance's study, in addition to Minnesota, I-94 is also the most dangerous interstate in Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana. Here in Minnesota, I-94 has a ranking of .66 fatal crashes per every 10 miles, the lowest out of all four states. I-94's highest ranking is in Illinois, where I-94 averages 4.23 fatal crashes per 10 miles.

You can check out which interstate is the most dangerous in each state in the graphic below. And then keep scrolling to see what the price of gasoline was the year you got your driver's license!

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