Colorado Ranks #9 in the Nation for Alcohol-Impaired Female Driver Fatal Crash Rate.

Colorado’s Rate of Fatal Drunk-Driving Crashes Involving Female Drivers Is 42% Above the National Average

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

• Colorado recorded the ninth highest per capita rate of alcohol-impaired female driver fatal crash involvements in the nation at 1.58 per 100,000 licensed female drivers, placing it in the Above Average tier.
• Between 2019 and 2023, Colorado recorded 180 fatal crash involvements involving alcohol-impaired female drivers, averaging 36.0 per year.
• Colorado’s rate of 1.58 is 42% above the national average of 1.11 per 100,000 licensed female drivers and more than 8 times higher than that of Massachusetts (0.19), the safest state.

Colorado ranks ninth in the nation for alcohol-impaired female driver fatal crash involvements per capita, placing it in the Above Average tier — a designation for states with a rate between 1 and 1.5 times the national average. Colorado is the second-highest-ranked state in the Mountain West that falls below the region’s own average of 2.02, placing it in an interesting position: high enough to rank ninth nationally, yet 22% below its regional peers.

According to an analysis by Ace Law Group, a Las Vegas-based personal injury law firm, this study extracted alcohol-impaired female driver involvements in fatal crashes from the NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database covering 2019 to 2023, then normalized those totals against licensed female driver counts from the Federal Highway Administration Highway Statistics 2021, Table DL-1C. The resulting per capita rate ranked each state per 100,000 licensed female drivers, not by raw crash totals, to control for population size.

Colorado’s National Standing: Top 10 States With the Highest Per Capita Rate (2019–2023)

Colorado’s rate of 1.58 per 100,000 licensed female drivers places it ninth nationally, just 0.01 above Texas (1.57) in tenth and 0.06 below Kentucky (1.64) in eighth. It ranks 64% below Montana (4.43), the nation’s highest-ranked state. Colorado and Texas form the lowest-ranked pair in the top 10, separated by a razor-thin margin of just 0.01 per 100,000, yet both still rank above 40 other states nationally.

Looking at the study, Patrick W. Kang, Founder of Ace Law Group, commented:

“Colorado’s rate of 1.58 alcohol-impaired female driver fatal crash involvements per 100,000 licensed female drivers is 42% above the national average. Colorado sits in the Mountain West — the highest-risk region in the country — and while it falls below the regional average, its national ranking confirms that even the lower end of a high-risk region produces outcomes well above the national benchmark. Road safety policy must account for these disparities.”

Colorado vs. Its Neighboring States: A Mixed Risk Landscape

Colorado’s six bordering states span a wide range of risk profiles. Wyoming (2.47) ranks second nationally at 56% above Colorado, sitting in the High Risk tier. New Mexico (1.57) and Oklahoma (1.54) are virtually tied with Colorado, falling just 1% and 3% below its rate and sharing the Above Average tier. Kansas (1.16), while still in the Above Average tier, sits 27% below Colorado. Nebraska (0.67) and Utah (0.66) both fall below the national average, each sitting 58% below Colorado’s rate and placing in the Below Average tier.

Colorado Within the Mountain West: The Nation’s Highest-Risk Region

The Mountain West posts the highest regional average of any U.S. region at 2.02 per 100,000 licensed female drivers — nearly three times the Northeastern average of 0.67. Colorado’s rate of 1.58 sits 22% below the Mountain West regional average, placing it fifth within the region. Montana (4.43), Wyoming (2.47), Idaho (2.29), and Nevada (1.77) all rank above Colorado within the region.

How All 50 States Classify by Risk Tier: Colorado’s Above Average Designation

Colorado is one of 14 states in the Above Average tier, with per capita rates between 1.11 and 1.66 per 100,000 licensed female drivers. At 1.58, Colorado sits toward the upper end of this tier, positioned between Kentucky (1.64) just above and Texas (1.57) just below — both also in the Above Average tier. The four Elevated Risk states (South Carolina, Delaware, Louisiana, Nevada) rank above this tier, followed by Wyoming and Idaho in High Risk, and Montana in the Extreme Risk tier.

Methodology

Fatal crash data were extracted from the NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) Drivers Involved in Fatal Crashes database for the five years spanning 2019 through 2023. The filtering process focused on female drivers in fatal crashes who were alcohol-impaired when the crash occurred. The researchers aggregated total involvement by state for the full five-year window and divided by five to calculate an annual average. To normalize for differences in state population and driver demographics, researchers divided each state’s five-year total by the number of licensed female drivers in that state, sourced from the Federal Highway Administration Highway Statistics 2021, Table DL-1C. They then multiplied this result by 100,000 to produce a per capita rate. That per capita rate ranked the states in descending order.

Data Sources:

• NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS): https://cdan.dot.gov/query
• Highway Statistics (2019 – 2023): https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2021/dl1c.cfm
• Research Dataset: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ACPZ1BZHRZaG9kDJD0y3AJ0l2kjlQysazWYvdLif-JA/edit?gid=0#gid=0
• Study by: http://acelawgroup.com/

About Ace Law Group

The study was conducted by Ace Law Group, a Las Vegas–based personal injury law firm representing injured individuals throughout Nevada. The firm handles car accidents, commercial vehicle crashes, premises liability claims, and serious injury cases, with a proven record of securing substantial verdicts and settlements for clients.

For more information, visit acelawgroup.com.