North Dakota recorded 89 traffic deaths in 2024, the state’s lowest total in 24 years, down from 106 the year before.[1] That is genuine progress on some of the emptiest, fastest roads in the country.
Here’s the part that surprises people. Per mile driven, North Dakota is actually safer than average, with 0.90 deaths per 100 million miles traveled against a national rate of 1.19.[2] The danger isn’t spread evenly. It concentrates on a specific type of road.
About 81% of the state’s crash deaths happen on rural roads, the highest share of any state in the nation.[2] So the honest question isn’t which single road is “the deadliest.” It’s which corridors put drivers most at risk, and why.
Key Takeaways
- North Dakota’s crash data does not crown one “deadliest road.” The highest fatality risk sits on rural, undivided two-lane US highways.[2]
- Interstates like I-94 see more crashes by volume but a lower death rate per mile than rural highways.[3]
- US Route 85 through the Bakken oil region is the most notorious corridor, driven by heavy oil-field truck traffic, not by any official ranking.[4]
- Lane departures were the leading cause of fatal crashes in 2024, tied to speed, seat-belt non-use, and impairment.[1]
What Is the Most Dangerous Road in North Dakota?
No single road wins that title in the crash data, and any article that names one is guessing. State and federal records don’t rank one highway as the statewide worst.[2] What the data does show is a pattern: rural, undivided two-lane US highways carry the highest fatality rates, well above the interstates.
If you want the one corridor most people mean, it’s US Route 85 through the Bakken oil region. It earned its reputation from oil-field truck traffic and two-lane geometry, not from a federal agency calling it number one.[4] We’ll get to why that distinction matters.
Why Rural Highways Are Deadlier Than Interstates
People assume the busiest road is the deadliest. That’s backward. Nationally, the fatality rate on rural roads runs about 1.5 times the urban rate, because rural crashes happen at higher speeds with less room to recover and slower emergency response.[3]
North Dakota shows this in the extreme. With four in five deaths on rural roads, the risk lives on open two-lane highways where a single lane departure can turn into a head-on or a rollover.[2] Those departures were the single leading factor in the state’s 2024 fatal crashes.[1]
So where does that leave Interstate 94? It carries huge traffic volume across Fargo, Bismarck, and Dickinson, and it logs plenty of crashes. But a divided interstate with wide medians and no cross-traffic is, per mile driven, one of the safer places to be.[3] High crash counts on I-94 reflect how much traffic it moves, not an unusually high death rate. That’s the correction to make: volume is not the same as risk.
US Route 85: The Bakken Oil Corridor
US Route 85 is the road locals point to first, and for a real reason. During the Bakken oil boom, traffic on the corridor more than doubled in about five years, and large trucks made up a substantial share of it.[4] A two-lane highway was suddenly carrying interstate-level freight.
This is the nuance most articles miss. The Federal Highway Administration noted that US-85’s historical crash record alone did not flag it as a major safety problem. The push to rebuild it came from surging traffic and truck volume, not a raw fatality ranking.[4] The danger is structural: too many heavy trucks on a road never built for them.
The state agreed the geometry had to change. NDDOT is converting roughly 62 miles of US-85 from two lanes to four between I-94 and the Watford City area.[5] One segment alone, from Watford City to the Long X Bridge, cost about $100 million and opened in 2024.[6]
Does the “deadly highway” reputation have history behind it? Yes. During the boom years, NDDOT year-end data showed US-85 leading the state in fatal, injury, and property-damage crashes.[7] That data is now more than a decade old, which is exactly why the four-laning matters: the fix is finally catching up to the risk.
Other High-Risk North Dakota Corridors
Beyond US-85, the risk shows up at specific junctions and rural segments that state engineers have already flagged and started fixing. These are documented trouble spots, not generic “sharp curves.” Each one has its own story.
The US-83 and ND-23 Junction South of Minot
This junction is one of North Dakota’s most dangerous intersections. It saw 14 crashes between 2018 and 2022, then three deaths in a single four-month stretch of 2023, which pushed the state to study a redesign.[8] High-speed cross traffic on a rural two-lane is a deadly mix, and options like a roundabout or interchange remove the right-angle collision entirely.
US Route 2 West of Williston
The stretch of US-2 west of Williston piled up 4 fatal crashes and 14 serious-injury crashes over five years, with rear-end and right-angle collisions driving 59% of them.[9] That’s why NDDOT has proposed reduced-conflict intersections and turn lanes along the corridor.
US Route 83, US Route 281, and Interstate 29
US-83 runs the length of the state and mixes small-town traffic with open high-speed segments, and the Minot-area junction above is its most documented hazard. US-281 and I-29 get named in a lot of “dangerous roads” lists, but the hard, source-backed crash data for those specific routes is thin. We’d rather tell you that than repeat numbers we can’t stand behind.
What Actually Causes North Dakota Crashes?
The road matters less than what happens on it. In 2024, lane departures led all fatal crash types, and the human factors behind them are consistent year to year: speed, no seat belt, and impairment.[1] These are the things a driver can actually control.
Seat belts are the clearest example. Almost half of the 89 people killed in 2024 were unbelted, 48% of all traffic deaths, and in a rollover or a departure crash a belt is often the difference between walking away and not.[1][10] Speed or aggressive driving was a factor in about a third of the deaths, and alcohol in roughly 19, though impaired-driving deaths fell sharply from the year before.[1][11]
Progress isn’t guaranteed, either. By late June 2026, North Dakota had already counted 43 traffic deaths, up from 27 on the same date a year earlier.[12] A record-low year can flip fast when belt use slips and speeds climb.
How to Stay Safer on North Dakota’s Highways
You can’t avoid every rural highway in a state built on them. You can cut your odds of being in the crash data. Buckle up on every trip, including the short rural ones where belt use tends to drop.
Give oil-field and freight trucks extra room on US-85 and other two-lane corridors, and never try to pass blind. Slow down for weather conditions, since ND’s open prairie produces black ice and ground blizzards with little warning. If you do get into an accident, document the scene and get checked by a doctor even if you feel fine.
Frequently Asked Questions
There's no single official "deadliest road." Crash data shows the highest fatality rates on rural, undivided two-lane US highways.[2] US Route 85 through the Bakken oil region is the corridor most often called the deadliest, mainly because of heavy oil-field truck traffic rather than a federal ranking.[4]
No. I-94 carries the most traffic and logs many crashes, but as a divided interstate it has a lower fatality rate per mile than rural two-lane highways.[3] High crash counts on I-94 reflect traffic volume, not unusual danger. Older claims naming it the single deadliest road aren't supported by state or federal data.
US-85 runs through the Bakken oil region, where traffic more than doubled during the oil boom and large trucks made up a substantial share of it on a two-lane highway.[4] That mismatch drove a project to widen roughly 62 miles of it to four lanes, including a $100 million segment opened in 2024.[5][6]
Lane departures led all fatal crash types in 2024, driven by speed, seat-belt non-use, and impaired driving.[1] Almost half of those killed that year (48%) were unbelted.[10] Rural roads account for 81% of the state's crash deaths, the highest share in the nation, where high speeds and slower emergency response raise the stakes.[2]
Sources:
[1] North Dakota Department of Transportation, 2024 Crash Summary (Vision Zero). visionzero.nd.gov – 2024 Crash Summary (PDF)
[2] Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), Fatality Facts 2024: State by State. iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state
[3] NHTSA, Rural/Urban Comparison of Traffic Fatalities, 2022 Data (Traffic Safety Facts). crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/813599
[4] Federal Highway Administration, Safety and NEPA Case Studies: North Dakota’s US-85 Expansion. highways.dot.gov – US-85 Expansion case study
[5] North Dakota Department of Transportation, US Highway 85 Expansion Project. dot.nd.gov/highway85
[6] The Dickinson Press, “NDDOT and McKenzie County celebrate completion of $100 Million U.S. Highway 85 expansion” (2024). thedickinsonpress.com
[7] The Dickinson Press, “U.S. Highway 85 leads deadly statistics” (NDDOT 2014 year-end data). thedickinsonpress.com
[8] The Dakotan, “Deadly and Dangerous” (US-83 & ND-23 intersection south of Minot; 14 crashes 2018–2022 and three deaths in 2023). mydakotan.com
[9] North Dakota Department of Transportation, Williston District: US 2 Project (Intersection Improvements West of Williston). nddotwilliston.com/us-2
[10] North Dakota Department of Transportation, Vision Zero: Occupant Protection (seat belt use and unbelted fatalities). visionzero.nd.gov/strategies/OccupantProtection
[11] KFYR-TV, “NDDOT reports major decline in drunk driving fatalities in 2024 preliminary numbers” (2025). kfyrtv.com
[12] InForum, “Traffic fatalities climb during 100 Deadliest Days in North Dakota” (ND Highway Patrol, 2026 year-to-date). inforum.com
