Skip to content

The American Driving Test Index: 50 states + DC, ranked.

We scored every U.S. jurisdiction on two things every new driver cares about — how hard the knowledge test is, and how safe the roads are — using 41,025 fatal-crash records from NHTSA, vehicle-mile and licensing data from FHWA, self-reported behaviour from the CDC, and the IIHS's law tables. The result is a single index of 51 jurisdictions, two composites, six metrics, and one open dataset.

Two views, one map.

Flip between road safety (how dangerous each state's roads are) and test difficulty (how strict each state's knowledge test is). In both views, green = top-tier and red = bottom-tier. Hover, tap, or pick a state to see its details and open its page.

Pick a state from the menu above or tap one on the map to see its details.

Source: DMV IQ Driving Index — FARS 2023 · FHWA 2024 · CDC BRFSS 2023 · IIHS 2025.

What the numbers say.

Across the 50 states we score, harder knowledge tests and safer roads tend to travel together — but loosely. Two findings stood out.

Top-10 in both
MD · ME

Of the ten hardest knowledge tests and the ten safest road networks, only Maryland and Maine show up on both lists.

The off-trend states
MA · ID

Massachusetts has one of the country's easier tests (#46) but the 4th-safest roads. Idaho does the opposite — 6th-hardest test, 45th on safety.

On the other end, 3 states appear in both bottom-10s (easiest tests AND most dangerous roads): Oklahoma, Iowa, Mississippi.

Every state, at a glance.

All 50 states plus DC, side by side. Click a column header to re-sort.

New Jersey1st of 51100.08th of 5166.7
Maryland2nd of 5198.81st of 51100.0
New York3rd of 5198.040th of 5132.7
Massachusetts4th of 5195.946th of 5116.4
Connecticut5th of 5191.614th of 5160.5
Minnesota6th of 5190.529th of 5149.1
Utah7th of 5187.129th of 5149.1
Delaware8th of 5182.919th of 5155.3
Maine9th of 5181.57th of 5167.7
Washington10th of 5179.48th of 5166.7
Georgia11th of 5179.150th of 510.0
Oregon12th of 5178.225th of 5149.7
Rhode Island13th of 5177.144th of 5121.4
New Hampshire14th of 5175.914th of 5160.5
Michigan15th of 5175.533rd of 5138.4
Hawaii16th of 5174.333rd of 5138.4
California17th of 5173.84th of 5176.4
Pennsylvania18th of 5172.12nd of 5186.5
Nevada19th of 5170.125th of 5149.7
Vermont20th of 5169.614th of 5160.5
Alaska21st of 5168.014th of 5160.5
West Virginia22nd of 5167.942nd of 5124.8
Virginia23rd of 5167.73rd of 5180.5
Illinois24th of 5167.38th of 5166.7
Florida25th of 5167.325th of 5149.7
Wisconsin26th of 5166.625th of 5149.7
Colorado27th of 5164.119th of 5155.3
North Carolina28th of 5163.25th of 5172.8
Indiana29th of 5162.58th of 5166.7
Tennessee30th of 5161.733rd of 5138.4
North Dakota31st of 5161.441st of 5127.0
District of Columbia32nd of 5159.9—
Alabama33rd of 5159.18th of 5166.7
Ohio34th of 5157.239th of 5132.8
Kentucky35th of 5157.013th of 5161.5
Arkansas36th of 5155.638th of 5135.8
Louisiana37th of 5155.419th of 5155.3
Texas38th of 5153.449th of 513.4
New Mexico39th of 5152.532nd of 5139.5
Arizona40th of 5151.637th of 5137.4
Kansas41st of 5151.043rd of 5122.9
Missouri42nd of 5150.814th of 5160.5
Oklahoma43rd of 5149.848th of 5110.0
South Carolina44th of 5149.636th of 5137.8
Idaho45th of 5146.96th of 5172.3
Wyoming46th of 5145.019th of 5155.3
Nebraska47th of 5144.619th of 5155.3
Iowa48th of 5143.545th of 5119.8
South Dakota49th of 5140.131st of 5143.9
Mississippi50th of 5113.947th of 5113.0
Montana51st of 510.024th of 5150.5

How we built this.

For road safety, we read NHTSA's fatal-crash records (41,025 of them, the most recent national release), pair them with FHWA's state-by-state vehicle-miles and licensing tables, layer in CDC self-reported behaviour for seat-belt use and drinking-and-driving, and finish with the IIHS's state-laws tables for graduated-licensing and distracted-driving provisions. Six pieces of data, equally weighted, scaled 0–100.

For test difficulty, we read every state DMV's knowledge-test specs straight from the agency: question count, passing score, the margin you're allowed for error, supervised-driving hours required before a road test, the age at which the full license arrives, and whether the test can be taken online. Same scaling, same scoreboard.

A few things we don't claim. The correlation between test difficulty and road safety in this dataset is r = 0.24 — a real, positive nudge, but well short of cause-and-effect. We describe the picture; we don't prescribe. Single-year crash counts in very small jurisdictions are noisy. Self-reported survey data is self-reported. The sources below have the receipts.

Sources

Data notes & caveats
  • Composite score: each of the six metrics is converted to a z-score across the 51 jurisdictions; the four 'lower is better' metrics are sign-flipped; the six z-scores are averaged and the result rescaled linearly to 0–100 (higher = safer / stronger laws). Methodology: scripts/driving-index/METHODOLOGY.md.
  • BRFSS 'Drink and Drive' module is not run by every state every year; states without 2023 data use the most recent prior year (recorded per state in context.metric_years).
  • GDL and distracted-driving strength scores are computed from IIHS law tables using the rubric in METHODOLOGY.md; they are not official IIHS ratings.
  • Teen-driver fatality-rate denominator was estimated from the national teen share of licensed drivers for DC, KY, where FHWA DL-22 reported an implausibly small "19 and under" count (context.teen_rate_denominator_estimated = true).
  • 1 state(s) have at least one IIHS provision that could not be auto-parsed (context.iihs_provisional = true).
  • Test-difficulty composite (difficulty_score) is computed from each state's passing percentage, margin (questions allowed wrong), supervised-driving hours, full-license age, and whether the knowledge test is available online; same z-score → equal-weight average → 0–100 rescale methodology as the road-safety composite. Higher = harder. difficulty_rank: 1 = hardest. Distinct from composite_score (road safety).
  • Motorcyclist fatality rate per 10,000 registered motorcycles = FARS motorcyclist fatalities (riders+passengers, BODY_TYP 80–89) ÷ FHWA MV-1 motorcycle registrations × 10,000. Single-year FARS counts are noisy for small jurisdictions.
  • Test-difficulty composite was not scored for DC — required GDL inputs were unavailable.

Spot an error? Email [email protected].

The American Driving Test Index (2026): All 50 States + DC, Ranked | DMV IQ