Ask a North Country driver when the roads are most dangerous and you’ll hear January. The whiteouts. The lake-effect bands shutting down I-81. The mornings you need a shovel before you need your keys.
The crash data says otherwise. An analysis of 390,334 police-reported crashes filed with the state DMV in 2023 found that October and November were the two highest-volume crash months in New York — not January, not February. November saw 37,045 crashes; October 36,705.
And here’s the part that should change how you think about it: nearly 75% of those crashes happened on dry pavement. Snow and ice were factors in only about 3.5%. Rain-slicked roads accounted for most of the rest. Winter weather, it turns out, is not the villain — we are, driving too fast for whatever the road is doing that day.
Why fall? The analysts point to a convergence: deer migration season, the sudden loss of evening daylight after the clocks change, and the first frosts — thin, invisible, on roads people are still driving like it’s September. None of that triggers a travel advisory. There are no dramatic warnings for the first frost the way there are for a blizzard. You just drive home in the dark, a deer steps out, or a bridge deck ices before the road does.
For the North Country, the stakes are higher than almost anywhere else in the state. A 2024 report from State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli found the seven-county North Country region had the highest per-capita traffic fatality rate in New York in 2022 — 12.9 deaths per 100,000 people, roughly double the state average. Jefferson County recorded 16 vehicle deaths that year, up from 9 the year before. In Lewis County, 8 deaths in a county of just over 25,000 people works out to 30 per 100,000. St. Lawrence County lost 18.
Jefferson County Sheriff Peter Barnett didn’t mince words when WWNY asked him about it last year: most of these crashes are preventable. “It’s obvious that people aren’t understanding what they need to do to keep these numbers low,” he said. His advice was almost boring in its simplicity: stay off the phone, wear the seatbelt, follow the speed limit, drive sober. “You’ve gotta have your A-game on when you get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. It’s no joke.”
He’s got the data behind him. When researchers studied a decade of January crashes on the Thruway, the most common cause in bad weather wasn’t the weather — it was “unsafe speed,” by a wide margin over everything else. Statewide, about one in three traffic deaths involves speeding. The snow doesn’t cause the crash. Driving 65 through it does.
So as the leaves turn, a short fall driving checklist — the unglamorous stuff that actually moves the numbers:
- Slow down before you think you need to. The first frost doesn’t announce itself. Bridges and overpasses ice first.
- Deer are most active at dawn and dusk — exactly when the light is worst. Scan the shoulders, not just the road.
- Headlights on in the gloom. The weeks after the time change are the darkest commutes of the year.
- Phone down. It’s on the sheriff’s list for a reason.
- Get the winter tires on before the first storm, not after. (We’ll have a full guide on that soon.)
Nobody can control a deer stepping onto the road at dusk. But the numbers are clear about what we can control, and it’s the same list every year: speed, attention, and respect for the season change. Fall doesn’t look dangerous. That’s exactly why it is.
Sources: analysis of 2023 NYS DMV crash data (https://www.1800law1010.com/new-yorks-road-safety-crisis/), NYS Comptroller motor vehicle fatality report, June 2024 (https://www.osc.ny.gov/press/releases/2024/06/dinapoli-motor-vehicle-fatalities-rise-sharply-ny), WWNY: “North county’s high rate of fatal crashes was preventable, says sheriff,” June 28, 2024 (https://www.wwnytv.com/2024/06/28/north-countys-high-rate-fatal-crashes-was-preventable-says-sheriff/), Thruway snowfall crash study abstract via SafetyLit (https://www.safetylit.org/citations/index.php?fuseaction=citations.viewdetails&citationIds[]=citjournalarticle_707939_29), NYS Traffic Safety Statistical Repository (https://www.itsmr.org/traffic-safety-statistical-repository/).
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