Drunk Driving Deaths by State
No state had more drunk driving deaths in 2024 than California: 1,088. That's just 29 more than second-place Texas's 1,059, the two closest totals of any ranking on this site. Montana tells a very different story. It recorded 92 drunk driving deaths in 2024. That total ranks 35th, in the bottom half of the pack. But Montana has just under 1.14 million residents. Those 92 deaths work out to 8.09 for every 100,000 people. That's the highest drunk driving death rate in the nation, nearly triple California's own rate of 2.76.
The gap between the two rankings is the finding. A raw total answers "where did the most people die." The rate answers a different question: "where is a resident's risk highest." California and Texas's size means their totals will almost always lead the country. Montana's total looks unremarkable next to them, buried in the middle of the list. Then population enters the picture. A small, rural state with a modest death count carries the country's steepest drunk driving death rate.
Neither number is the "real" one. A journalist covering California's roads has a genuine 1,088-death story. A journalist covering Montana's roads has a genuine highest-rate-in-the-nation story. The table below carries both numbers for every state. A state's share of the national total and its rate against the other 50 sit one column apart, not in separate lookups.
This ranking counts every death in a crash involving a driver the record flags as drinking. It doesn't count arrests, citations, or self-reported estimates. It covers every U.S. state and the District of Columbia from 2000 through 2024. The rates and totals here use the most recent complete year, 2024. The yearly averages behind them use the five years from 2020 through 2024.
The 5 states with the highest drunk driving death rates
Drunk driving deaths per 100,000 residents, 2024
| Rank | State | Drunk driving deaths, 2024 | Per 100,000 residents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Worst | California | 1,088 | 2.76 |
| 2 | Texas | 1,059 | 3.38 |
| 3 | Florida | 522 | 2.23 |
| 4 | South Carolina | 344 | 6.28 |
| 4 | North Carolina | 344 | 3.11 |
| 6 | Ohio | 342 | 2.88 |
| 7 | Tennessee | 309 | 4.28 |
| 8 | Michigan | 299 | 2.95 |
| 9 | Illinois | 285 | 2.24 |
| 10 | Arizona | 283 | 3.73 |
| 11 | Pennsylvania | 275 | 2.10 |
| 12 | Virginia | 270 | 3.06 |
| 13 | Alabama | 258 | 5.00 |
| 14 | Missouri | 252 | 4.03 |
| 15 | Georgia | 238 | 2.13 |
| 16 | Louisiana | 220 | 4.78 |
| 16 | Colorado | 220 | 3.69 |
| 18 | Washington | 204 | 2.56 |
| 19 | Wisconsin | 202 | 3.39 |
| 20 | Kentucky | 185 | 4.03 |
| 20 | Indiana | 185 | 2.67 |
| 22 | Oklahoma | 164 | 4.00 |
| 23 | Maryland | 163 | 2.60 |
| 23 | Arkansas | 163 | 5.28 |
| 25 | Oregon | 157 | 3.67 |
| 25 | New York | 157 | 0.79 |
| 27 | New Jersey | 144 | 1.52 |
| 28 | Mississippi | 140 | 4.76 |
| 29 | Minnesota | 130 | 2.24 |
| 30 | Kansas | 120 | 4.04 |
| 31 | Nevada | 113 | 3.46 |
| 32 | Connecticut | 109 | 2.97 |
| 33 | Massachusetts | 98 | 1.37 |
| 34 | Utah | 97 | 2.77 |
| 35 | Montana | 92 | 8.09 |
| 36 | Nebraska | 90 | 4.49 |
| 37 | Idaho | 84 | 4.20 |
| 38 | Iowa | 78 | 2.41 |
| 38 | West Virginia | 78 | 4.41 |
| 40 | New Mexico | 71 | 3.33 |
| 41 | Maine | 62 | 4.41 |
| 42 | South Dakota | 56 | 6.06 |
| 43 | New Hampshire | 45 | 3.19 |
| 44 | Hawaii | 31 | 2.14 |
| 45 | Wyoming | 30 | 5.11 |
| 46 | Delaware | 29 | 2.76 |
| 47 | North Dakota | 28 | 3.52 |
| 48 | Vermont | 25 | 3.86 |
| 49 | Rhode Island | 20 | 1.80 |
| 50 | Alaska | 14 | 1.89 |
| 51 | District of Columbia | 7 | 1.00 |
Scroll to see all rows on small screens.
Cite this data: "Drunk Driving Deaths by State," injured.org, 2026. https://injured.org/data/drunk-driving-deaths-by-state/
Methodology
We pulled this from federal fatal-crash records, 2000-2024. Read the full methodology →
Updated July 2026
Which years the numbers cover: totals and rates use the latest complete year, 2024. Which states are counted: all 50 plus the District of Columbia (51 rows). See our data sources page for the full source list.
How a death counts as drunk driving: a crash record must flag at least one driver in that crash as drinking. That's the same standard police departments report to the federal fatal-crash record. It doesn't count arrests, citations, or self-reported estimates. It counts any driver a police officer reported as drinking, whether or not a blood-alcohol test was taken.