SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – A new report on speeding and road safety has been released, and Louisiana is one of the top five U.S. states most prone to citizens excessively driving over the speed limit.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stresses that speeding is dangerous and puts drivers, passengers, and pedestrians at risk.

Using NHTSA data, each state was ranked from best to worst to raise awareness about the dangers of speeding. Louisiana has more speeding drivers than Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Tennessee. But the Bayou state also has more excessively speeding drivers per capita than almost all other states in the Union.

Male drivers from Louisiana are responsible for almost 80% of drivers in fatal crashes, while women drivers only constitute about 20% of drivers involved in deadly crashes.

Only two other states have citizens that drive faster than Louisianians—Hawaii and New Mexico.

The states with the fewest amount of drivers that excessively speed are Vermont, Alaska, and Nevada (in that order.)

Speeding on rural roads is even more dangerous than driving on urban interstates. In 2018, 41% of speed-related fatalities happened on non-interstate, rural roads. Only 9% of speed-related traffic fatalities occurred on interstate urban roadways, while another 44% occurred on non-interstate urban streets. Comparing the populations of urban areas to rural areas shows a higher percentage of rural, speed-related traffic fatalities occur per capita. For example, more than 184,000 people live in Shreveport–while approximately 36,000 people live in all of Webster Parish, 14,000 in Claiborne Parish, and 26,900 in De Soto Parish.

In Louisiana, almost 20 percent of fatal Louisiana crashes involve speeding. There are 5.64 speed-involved deaths per 100,000 licensed drivers.