Michigan Ranked Among The Safest Recreational Boating States

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As summer boating season begins to really ramp up and recreational boating sales are also exploding this year as people look more towards outdoor activities, this newly released data from the US Coast Guard's Boating Safety Division and Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows that Michigan ranks among the safest recreational boating states in the US.

The map above is based on 2019 data that was released just this month from the US Coast Guard's Boating Safety Division (uscgboating.org) and Bureau of Transportation Statistics, looking at the number of accidents per 100k registered watercraft. (2020 data will be released in June of 2021)

As with the previous 2018 data, the Southwest region seems to have the most accident-prone boaters.

The top 10 most accident-prone boating states are as follows (based on accidents causing injury, death, or property damage per 100k registered watercraft):

Utah - 133.94
Hawaii - 121.25
Nevada - 107.50
Rhode Island - 107.06
Arizona - 77.91
Maryland - 76.31
Florida - 73.39
New Jersey - 73.35
Massachusetts - 59.65
Idaho - 57.60

The top 10 least accident-prone states are:

Iowa - 9.08
Oklahoma - 12.09
Minnesota - 12.21
Wisconsin - 13.34
Vermont - 13.94
Kansas - 15.72
Mississippi - 15.74
Michigan - 16.09
West Virginia - 17.56
Pennsylvania - 18.91

The map was put together by boating safety site boatsafe.com, again using data from the US Coast Guard and Bureau of Transportation Statistics.