Memorial Day Weekend: the Deadliest U.S. Holiday for Car Accidents
While all holiday weekends carry an increased risk of car accident fatalities, Memorial Day weekend stands out as the deadliest. In fact, drivers and passengers are four times as likely to die in a traffic accident over the Memorial Day weekend as over a regular weekend; according to data collected by the personal finance website ValuePenguin.com this spring. They looked at traffic fatalities on all major U.S. holidays using statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and found that Memorial Day weekend had the highest average fatality rate with 312 fatal accidents per year between 2011 and 2015. Labor Day weekend and the Fourth of July weekend didn’t fare much better with an average of 308 and 307 fatalities per year respectively. Of all the individual days around big summer holidays, the most dangerous day was the Fourth of July.