The 9 Safest States

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June is designated as "National Safety Month," an annual observance used by the National Safety Council to focus attention on preventing workplace injuries, roadway accidents, and safety lapses at home. Here's a look at the states with the best safety statistics.

June is designated as “National Safety Month,” an annual observance used by the National Safety Council to focus attention on preventing workplace injuries, roadway accidents, and safety lapses at home.

The personal finance website WalletHub is using the occasion to look at the states with the best overall safety rankings. To compile its list, WalletHub looked at 20 different metrics, grouping them into 5 categories: Financial Safety (a measure of factors such as health coverage and unemployment); Road Safety; Workplace Safety; Natural Disasters (for this category, WalletHub looked at billion-dollar disasters and property loss estimates); and Home and Community Safety (including factors like number of police per capita and violent crime rates).

Broadly speaking, states in the northeast did quite well. Most of the lowest-ranking states were in the southern half of the US.

The most dangerous place to be on the road, according to WalletHub, was Montana. The state ranks tops in terms of fatalities per capita. The safest place to drive was Massachusetts.

As for natural disasters, Oklahoma, in the heart of Tornado Alley, was found to be the least-safe state. Hawaii, meanwhile, appears to be earning its reputation for good weather, earning the top ranking for its lack of costly natural disasters.

Home and Community Safety was given the most weight in the survey. In that area, New York earned the highest marks. Among other factors, New York has the third-highest number of law enforcement employees of any state. Arkansas got the lowest rankings for home and community safety.

What follows are the 9 states with the best overall safety ranking, according to Wallet Hub’s survey. In addition to their overall ranking, we’ve pulled out each state’s ranking in the road safety, natural disaster, and home and community safety categories.