Thanksgiving Travel Warning as Data Reveals Michigan’s Deadliest Places to Drive in Winter

Photo by Lisa Fotios

Article courtesy of Priority Tire.

• With Thanksgiving opening the holiday travel season, Battle Creek is named the most dangerous area of Michigan to drive in winter, with an average of 3.36 road deaths per 100,000 residents every winter, the highest rate of any metropolitan area in the state.
• Ann Arbor is the safest area to drive during the winter, with an average of 1.55 deaths per 100,000 residents, less than half of Battle Creek’s rate.
• Thanksgiving drivers are being warned to take care, as 1,587 people died on the roads of the 15 metropolitan areas based in Michigan across the winters of 2014 to 2023, according to federal crash records from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
• AAA forecast a record 81.8 million Americans would travel at least 50 miles from home over Thanksgiving last year, with at least 73 million going by car.

As millions of Americans prepare to hit the road for Thanksgiving, new research has revealed the most dangerous areas of Michigan for drivers in winter, with Battle Creek found to be the most dangerous metropolitan area in the state.

The study, conducted by online tire shop Priority Tire, analyzed ten years of fatal crash records held by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and compared them against Census Bureau population figures. It found which metropolitan areas see the highest rate of road deaths per resident during the winter months.

The research follows AAA’s forecast that a record 81.8 million Americans would travel at least 50 miles from home over last year’s Thanksgiving period, 1.6 million more than the year before, with at least 73 million going by car.

The ten deadliest areas to drive in Michigan during the winter

Battle Creek, the metropolitan area covering Calhoun County, tops the ranking with 3.36 winter road deaths per 100,000 residents each year. The county recorded 45 deaths across the ten winters studied, from a resident population of 133,785, placing Battle Creek 105th out of all 387 metropolitan areas in the United States, and 78 percent above the Michigan metro average of 1.89 deaths per 100,000 residents.

Flint ranks second, with 2.73 road deaths per 100,000 residents each winter, drawn from 110 winter fatalities between 2014 and 2023 and a population of 402,279. The area sits 160th nationally, above Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, the state’s most populous metropolitan area.

Bay City takes third place, with an average of 2.73 road fatalities per 100,000 people, a fraction behind Flint before rounding. Its population is 102,651, and there have been 28 winter deaths recorded in Bay County over the decade. December and January account for 20 of those, more than two thirds of the area’s winter death count.

Traverse City is fourth, with 2.68 deaths per 100,000 residents, and its 42 winter fatalities are the fifth largest raw count among the ten deadliest areas. The metro area’s population is 156,634.

Muskegon-Norton Shores ranks fifth, with 2.25 deaths per 100,000 residents, from 40 winter fatalities and a population of 177,428.

Kalamazoo-Portage comes sixth, followed by Saginaw and Monroe, while Grand Rapids-Wyoming-Kentwood and Niles round out the top ten.

Thanksgiving drivers passing through those ten areas are being urged to take extra care. They are home to 35 percent of the residents of the 15 metropolitan areas based in Michigan but recorded 41 percent of the winter road deaths in those areas, led by Grand Rapids-Wyoming-Kentwood on 229, Flint on 110 and Kalamazoo-Portage on 58.

The safest area to drive in Michigan during the winter is Ann Arbor, with 1.55 deaths per 100,000 residents during the season each year, less than half of Battle Creek’s rate.

Detroit-Warren-Dearborn and Midland are the second and third safest, with 1.68 and 1.79 average yearly winter road fatalities per 100,000 residents, respectively.

A spokesperson for Priority Tire has commented:

“Thanksgiving opens the holiday travel season, and for many families that means a long drive on roads they rarely use, often with a full car. The winter figures are a warning for anyone hitting the road this Thanksgiving. Across the winters of 2014 to 2023, 1,587 people died on the roads of the 15 metropolitan areas based in Michigan, almost 160 every winter.

“Among metropolitan areas based in Michigan, the winter rate sits below the national figure, at 1.89 deaths per 100,000 residents against 2.22.

“All ten of the deadliest areas to drive in a Michigan winter lie outside the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn metropolitan area, from Niles, Kalamazoo and Battle Creek in the south of the state to Flint, Saginaw, Bay City and Traverse City further north, telling us that these areas are more dangerous. Take extra care if your Thanksgiving trip takes you through any of these areas.

“If you can, do the long stretch of your drive in daylight and give yourself extra time, and before you load up the car for Thanksgiving, it is important to remember the warning signs that your vehicle may not be safe to drive.

“Cold air can drop your tire pressure, and most drivers never think to check it until something feels wrong, but underinflated tires wear at the shoulders and increase your stopping distance, which is the last thing you want with a car full of family, bags and leftovers. Get a gauge, check all four tires while they are cold before you leave, and top them up to the figure printed inside the driver’s door, or to the heavy-load pressure in your owner’s manual if it gives one.

“Tread depth matters just as much, and the legal minimum is a long way below the point at which a tire stops clearing water properly. Two thirty-seconds of an inch is the legal limit in most states, but wet grip starts falling away well before that. Put a quarter into the groove upside down, and if you can see the top of Washington’s head, you are already into the range in which stopping distances increase, so it is time to replace your tires before you leave.”

Sources:

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Fatality Analysis Reporting System

United States Census Bureau, TIGER/Line Shapefiles

United States Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program

AAA, Thanksgiving travel forecast 2025

Methodology:

Data was gathered from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System, which records every fatal motor vehicle crash on public roads in the United States.

Ten years of crash records covering 2014 to 2023 were combined into a single dataset of 350,563 fatal crashes that could be placed on a map, accounting for 380,896 deaths nationally and 10,368 deaths in Michigan. The dataset leaves out a small number of crashes, so NHTSA’s own totals run slightly higher.

Every crash point was geocoded to its Core Based Statistical Area using the Census Bureau’s TIGER/Line shapefile. Resident population figures were taken from the Census Bureau’s Population Estimates Program, using the 2024 estimate for each area.

Winter is defined as the three meteorological winter months of December, January and February, so Thanksgiving itself is not counted. For each area, winter fatalities across the full ten years were divided by resident population and by ten, giving an annual rate per 100,000 residents.

Micropolitan areas were filtered out, leaving the 15 metropolitan areas based in Michigan as the ranked candidate set.

Rates are per resident, not per mile driven, and count every road death in the area, including pedestrians and non-residents.

Metropolitan areas that cross a state line are counted in full and ranked under the state named first in their official title, so the Michigan part of the South Bend-Mishawaka metropolitan area is counted under Indiana instead.

The smallest base in the ranking is Midland on 15 winter fatalities, and 14 of the 15 areas exceed 20. National ranks quoted are positions among all 387 metropolitan areas in the United States.

Full ranking: all 15 metropolitan areas based in Michigan by winter road death rate