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Those US states that are recording the highest homicide rates are the same states that seem to be recording as well, the highest rates of traffic deaths, higher than those being reported by other states. This is information from a study being carried out by the University of Michigan.
The University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) has reported the findings of a new study in the current issue of the journal Traffic Injury Prevention. Survey director Dr. Michael Sivak of the University of Michigan reports finding that the homicide rate as measured per 100,000 population, was 5.7 for the 25 states studied, those states that reported the highest traffic fatality rates. For the 25 states that reported the lowest traffic fatality rates, including the District of Columbia, the homicide rate was reported as being only 4.8. When the District of Columbia is excluded, the homicide rate for the 25 states with the lowest traffic fatality rates falls to 3.8.

As Professor Sivak puts it, it is important to note that these result should not be interpreted as implying that a significant fraction of traffic fatalities are actually homicides. What he says is that there is a suggestion that the same aggressive tendencies that contribute to the committing of homicides also tend to appear, to a limited degree anyway, in the interpersonal behavior demonstrated on the roads. Dr. Sivak is a research professor at UMTRI, the institute that carried out the study.
Dr. Sivak also analyzed the possible disparity in traffic fatality rates that are exhibited as a function of the distances driven throughout the United States. He employed data from 2006 reported to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, and the US government Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Sivak identified at least 10 factors contributing to the results and also found that seven of them explained 71 percent of the variance in traffic fatality rates. These were the homicide rates, the proportion of drivers who are male, the proportion of drivers who are older than the norm, the number of alcohol-related liver failures (used as an indication of level of drunken driving), and the number and density of physicians, and includes seat-belt use rate and income.

It was found that the strongest indicator of traffic fatality rates was the homicide rate. In the study, the homicide rate is use as a proxy for aggression.

Sivak says that this was found to be consistent with the notion that traffic safety is to a large extent a factor of human interactions, which play an important role. He says that as a whole, the findings are also consistent with the generally accepted view that the states' traffic fatality rates are actually a function of many factors. He says that assuming that most of the above factors are driver-related and that a significant proportion of driving is performed across state lines, there us a large amount of variance in road fatality rates, which is probably as large as could be expected for this form of analysis.

For all of the 50 states in the United States, including the District of Columbia, Sivak found that the average traffic fatality rate was 1.5 deaths per 100 million miles driven. The actual rates however, ranged from in the case of Massachusetts with 0.8 fatalities per 100 million miles to the state of Montana with 2.3 fatalities per 100 million miles.