Minnesota's Deadliest Highways To Watch This July 4th

If you’re planning a trip up north or hitting the road for the 4th of July holiday, make sure to drive with extra care, especially on these routes. They’ve earned the unfortunate title of being the deadliest highways in Minnesota.

We Minnesotans love our cars, trucks, SUVs, and anything else with wheels. And according to AAA, a *lot* of us will be out and about in one of those vehicles this holiday weekend. In fact, AAA says a record-setting 72.2 million Americans are expected to hit the road over the 4th of July this year. And out of all those busy highways and interstates crisscrossing the North Star State, we now know just which ones are 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 the Minnesota House of Representatives, that's how many miles there are in Minnesota between town roads, city streets, county roads, and highways.

READ MORE: These 5 Vehicles Are Linked to the Most Crashes in Minnesota

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.

Whether you're on a local or town road, a city street, a county highway, a state highway, or an interstate, traveling those roadways can be dangerous. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says that nearly 39,000 people were killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes on U.S. roadways in 2023—an increase of roughly 7% from 2019, according to the most recent data released in 2022.

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The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) notes that last year was a particularly deadly one in the North Star State. Over the '100 deadliest days of summer,' which is between Memorial Day and Labor Day, the Minnesota State Patrol said that Minnesota reported 151 traffic deaths.

So, what are the most fatal highways in Minnesota? Stacker ranked data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, compiled by the NHTSA, to identify the highways in Minnesota with the most fatalities from motor vehicle crashes in 2020. Keep scrolling to find out. And then keep scrolling to see what the price of gasoline was the year you got your driver's license!

LOOK: Minnesota's 25 Most Fatal Highways

Explore the alarming data on Minnesota's deadliest highways and the efforts to improve safety.

Gallery Credit: Stacker

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LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

Gallery Credit: Sophia Crisafulli