WASHINGTON D.C., DC — Researchers found the wetter the roads, the deadlier they become, with rain, snow and ice increasing the risk of car crashes by 34 percent.
Light rain increases the fatal car crash risk by 27 percent. Study lead author Scott Stevens says this is the type of drizzle that makes you wonder if you should open the umbrella, but it still makes the roads deadlier.
Stevens, a data analyst and meteorologist at the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies, and colleagues looked at 125,012 continental U.S. fatal car crashes from 2006 to 2011 and calculated the risk.
The study is in this week's Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
